Scorch fire, part one
by ikky009
Summary: Every time you see something in you're imagination, you see an alternate world... Fiction works are the authors way of removing the view of the alternate world from there head.... a young man named Bill is about to go on a journey through-out these worlds
1. Chapter 1

Hello, this is my story of Bill and Scorch, i'm doing alot of editing and plot development

This part of the series i'm thinking of making a prequel to the rest. if you like it and i havn't published the rest you can read the unedited versions it . Plz feel free to point out any inconsistencies as I'm trying to make this close to perfect as possible.

Oh.... "" normal talk {} telepethy _blah blah blah=_thought

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Part I

Hello, my name is Bill. I was, once, an average kid, but now, I'm blessed with this power. My journey started when….

I was on my way home after school; I didn't know why at the time, but for the first time I felt all alone in the world. Even though I was with my best friends in the world, something was still missing. My train of though broke when I heard Ashley yell my name.

"Bill, are you listening?" My friend Ashley snapped.

"Sorry.", I shook my head, "I spaced out." I had always liked Ashley and everyone at School said that we were a cute couple but we never got together or anything, just hung out as friends.

"Well zone back in here." Tom butted in drawing a spiral with his finger. "Are you coming tomorrow?" Tom asked. Tom was my best friend we had known each other forever. We went everywhere together and got into so much trouble.

"No, I don't think so, I feel weird. I think I might be getting sick." I had been very nervous today, something was about to happen; but I couldn't figure out what.

"Alright, but you'll miss out..." I didn't hear anymore, I was still trying to think about what possibly could be missing; in case it was something simple, like I had forgot something at school. Once we reached Tom's house Ashley and I waved goodbye and continued walking, I looked back at tom once more, it felt as if I was leaving him forever. I walked Ashley home and said goodbye, it felt like this would be the last time I was going to see her as well.

I was close to home when I heard Roger, my 'personal' bully, calling. No matter what mood, or how deep in thought, I was in, I always heard his voice. I looked around and saw him and his to lackeys; Travis, and Michel, running after me. It was a few blocks to my house I could run it.... I hoped. I bolted for home and imagined myself running faster then possible; but after looking back I knew they would catch me. However, I hoped to tier at least them out some before they caught up, so I poured all my strength into running. I looked back again to see how close they were, but I couldn't see them; but still, that wouldn't slow me down, they might have taken a short cut to ambush me. I didn't stop until I realized I was passing cars. I stopped dead when I saw the old house, which was several blocks passed mine, just ahead. 'I passed my house, weird, I thought turning around. I walked cautiously back toward my house. I was still amazed that I had run three blocks past my house and didn't realize it. I should've tried for the sprinting team, I kept telling myself. I relaxed when I came into the safety of my home. Suddenly I felt a huge shock wave of pain, and energy just vanished from my body. When the pain became bearable, I hobbled into the kitchen there was a note on the fridge, I slumped into a chair and read it.

_Dear Bill, it read,_

_Mom took me to practice. I'm learning how to write letters in school tell me how I do writing this._

_From Katie_

Mom would likely not come home till after practice so she wouldn't be home in time to fix dinner. Exhausted, I grumpily ate leftovers from the fridge and I turned on the news. "…More strange disappearances to be reported today; also, increased unknown animal sightings, more about these events at five." I turned the TV off it was the only thing they reported and I could have cared less about them, I even hated them. Over the past few years, these portals had begun appearing out of nowhere. My father was researching them, unfortunately, he was to close and something grabbed and pulled him into the portal. All the animals that came over from the other worlds were always weird; some even had abilities that made them 'dangerous'.

I thought about my run home, and shook my head. _Not again_, I thought. I had two other weird things, mostly when I was desperate to do something. The first time that I remember doing something weird, was while I was playing little league. While playing a little league game there were two on the bases, to win the game, we had to get them home. I was the last one up to bat and, unfortunately, had horrible hand eye coordination. When the third and final pitch came, desperate and out of options, I closed my eyes and swung, imagined myself doing the impossible and smashing the ball. I opened my eyes and saw what I imagined, had happened I circled the bases and ran to my teammates who cheered and teased me, but collapsed when a sharp pain shot through my body and knocked me out.

Another time was about three years ago, I was eleven I had just moved in and it was my first day at a new school. At my old school, I was known as the strong kid; I had won many an arm wrestling match against many of my class mates and could punt footballs farther than anyone, although my accuracy was off. However at this new school, Butch had been held back, no one at my old school had ever been held back, and, being a teenager, he was much stronger than anyone my age and used that strength to bully kids. I saw Butch picking on Tom, who I didn't know yet, and thought I would put a stop to it, stupid me. I asked nicely the first time, he laughed and had his beat on me. I wrestled them off and, unscathed, asked nicely a third time. Interested that I hadn't been hurt by Travis and Michel he stopped picking on Tom and started pushing me around, instantly I knew I was screwed. No one at my old School could push me back, no one; but Butch just kept pushing me. Aggravated I pushed back; he then laughed and pushed me to the ground then started wailing on me throwing punches as hard as he could. I covered up as best as I could, my imagination took over and I saw myself with the shell of a turtle. After pounding into my face and ribs for a good while, teachers finally showed up to break up the fight. When they picked m up off the ground everyone stared at me, I thought my face was so busted up, seeing as I could no longer feel it, I was unrecognizable. Butch was freaking his fists both looked like he had been punching a concrete block as hard as he could. The nurse came and took me to the station while Butch went to the hospital to see if he had broken any bones. When I was finally able to look in a mirror, I thought it was broken, I had no damage to my face or body, what so ever. I pushed those old memories back into repression and went up to my room to take a nap, I felt as if I had run three marathons. When mom finally showed up, way later than usual, I went and picked Katie up out of the car, she had fallen asleep; took her to her room, and then went back to bed.

That night, I was woken by a growl. I sat up in my bed and looked to se a strange figure. Too fast to see he grabbed a bag, pulled out a knife and jumped to stab me in my bed. He said something about a prophecy ending, I kicked and threw him into the wall and jumped out of bed. He stood up, smiling sinisterly, and walked toward me fidgeting with the knife. I held a lamp over my, head threatening to hit him with it if he came any closer. Still smiling he reached into the bag and pulled out and threw a ball at my feet, when it hit the floor a portal opened beneath me and I fell through. He jumped into the portal and looked around for me, but, I had hid behind a door that seemingly hung in mid air. I quickly pinched myself several times to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly peeked around the door, I couldn't see the creature; but the portal to my room was still open, so I darted through it. Pulling my self onto the floor, I slid away hoping the portal would close but it didn't. I felt a very confusing feeling, I had to go back; I wanted to go back. I still don't know why but, I decided to go back. I guess it was because I was the first one to see another dimension. But, first I needed to grab some food, bottled water, and a small emergency kit, the Gov. was giving us tons of stuff because of my dad, from my hidden fridge and threw some clothes into a bag. I couldn't believe I was going to do this. I pinched myself again to double check, I wasn't dreaming. I dropped into the portal and just as I did it shut.

I looked around and saw, to my surprised, doors, I felt like I was on a twilight zone rerun or something. I picked a door and opened it, what I saw was truly amazing, prehistoric animals, dinosaurs, a brachiasaurs was walking in the distance, a herd of triceratops was near the portal. One charged toward me, I jumped back, and slammed the door. I chose another door and opened it slowly. When I looked through and saw a wall of water; I stepped, back but then realized, _oh the waters not coming through_. I looked into the water and saw an underwater city; something flashed in-front of the portal, a mermaid? She swam back and looked at me curiously; she reached out to touch me when she reached the portal she couldn't pass through. I waved and she waved back then I slowly shut the door. At the last glimpse I saw a small fish look out from behind her. Weird, I thought, I looked in another door but there was nothing to see. As soon as I shut the door a gust of wind flew by me, and two doors, carried by the wind, were before me. One had a three-headed dog; the other had a white dragon in flight. I heard a voice say, "Choose a door, but choose wisely, one leads down the path of evil, one the path of good." I thought for a moment, three-headed dog? Cerberus, evil; I opened the dragon door and was sucked in and blacked out.

When I woke I sat straight up, I looked around and saw deer, or what might've been deer. I stood up and took a look around, I was in an opening, to one side was a thick tree line, and on the other was a cliff. I walked around and saw a cave; I didn't see anything that said something was living there. I sat down and thought to reflect, and thought what I should do next and what if I couldn't get back; but I decided that it was a waste of time. I gathered branches and started a fire. The next few days I explored the region. One time I fell, accidentally, into a wolf's under-ground den. The mother wasn't happy especially when the young ones came to check out what had fallen from the roof. I escaped out the hole and ran back to the cave.

I was able, over the next few weeks, to earn a small amount of respect from them, though they wouldn't let me near, they allowed me to watch them hunt. I had seen the wolves stand on there hind legs and do a weird thing with there front limbs. Where ever they pointed a gust of wind shot out from the wolf and hit the target knocking it several feet. The deer would use the trees and move them to block an attack. While any rabbits who were knocked back, if not into the jaws of another wolf, would stomp there foot on the ground and it would open and close behind them. The animals here had elemental abilities I was amazed to see all the things the animals could do. The deer, when they rested, would encase them selves in a shield of branches and roots keeping the predators out. A few weeks had past and I was surviving well enough for someone who would of thought he had almost no survival skills. I learned the area within several miles of my cave in any direction, where the wolves hunted, where to fish, where to find berries and other edible and not so edible plants, every thing was going fine till. One evening I heard a cry of an animal, I had never heard one that sounded like it before, followed by a howl, a hunt was on, something told me to check it out. Some wolves were hunting something I also hadn't seen before, a large lizard about five to six feet tall. I had an overwhelming feeling I had to help him. I went and hid near an area I knew they would make there kill, under a cliff where they could corner him. When they chased him in, I watched as they made false charges, and seemed to laugh at the lizard. The lizard was tired out and couldn't fight them now. Two of the wolves went and got around him and grabbed his flank. As soon as I saw them bite I felt like I was the one being bit, I yelped in pain it startled the wolves and they let go to see what was happening, they turned and look for where the shout came from. It was the distraction the lizard was praying for; he kicked the two behind him and blew a fireball at the ones in front, clearing a path for him to run through. The wolves chased after howling for joy. I ran off and hid in the direction they were running and climbed a rock to get a better view, then i noticed a difference in the color of the wolves from this are, and the other wolves, this was not the wolf pack that i knew, these intruders had darker fur and had a seemingly evil aura around them. The lizard ran surprisingly faster than the wolves; these wolves must not have the ability to control the wind. The lizard doubled back and climbed up a tree, i crept closer to get a better view and I saw that the lizard was being sniffed out by the wolves, he was caught, the wolves would knock down the tree and that would be it for the lizard. It hurt the lizard to hold on to the branches, I watched as he slipped down the tree, then amazingly the wolves ran off, another familiar howl was warning the pack of the intruders.

I slid down the rock and knelt down in the tall grass. As i watched the poor lizard I felt as though I was attached to him, like I knew this creature. The lizard slid slowly down the tree and started off in the opposite direction of the wolves. In the direction of the howl, I knew that the locals were likely to pick him off. I stood up, he saw me and charged, i stood my ground, he took another look at me and slowed down and stoped. Tears of fear and pain filled his eyes, I waved at him to follow me, he responded with a jet of flame out of his nose. He didn't like the idea of going the same way the wolves were. I waved for him to follow again and he did. He followed me, at a distance, to my cave I opened the door I had made and came in and placed a bottle of water over the fire to warm it. As soon as the lizard came in he sat in the dark of the cave. I shut and locked the door, the wood was so light here but incredible strong; I couldn't even scratch it hitting it over a boulder. I sat down, waiting for the water to boil. I could hear him in the back of the cave breathing heavily and licking his wounds, when the plastic on the bottle started to melt I removed it with a stick and set down to cool a little. When it had I approached the lizard, he shifted uncomfortably, I put my hands up to show I meant no harm, and grabbed the water bottle, I had some antiseptic left and dabbed it on a semi-clean shirt, poured the warm water on it and wrapped it around his leg. He flinched, involuntarily, knocking me over with his bulk. I got up and grabbed another shirt and did the same for the other wound, then sat down by the door, he was giving me looks that I didn't, and still don't, like. Several hours later I got up to change the rags he didn't move, or flinch. When i looked into his eyes I saw inteligence in his gaze. By the intensity of his thought he must've been debating something important. When I was done changing the rags he turned to me and raised his claw carefully slowly, to show he wasn't going to harm me. Touching my forehead with the tip of his claw, I felt a whole world of knowledge enter my mind. I saw wolves chasing me; but wait, this isn't me, it's the lizard and these were his memories. I then saw houses and fortresses, I heard words, more like growls, and there meanings became clear, I felt something try to enter me, I resisted and it stopped; i then blacked out. When I woke up the lizard was asleep. I heard the howl of the wolves, it sounded sad. I put a second lock on the door, another log on the fire and went back to sleep. When I woke the lizard was chatting with a bird, the bird nodded and flew off. "Finally, your up" he said somewhat exhausted. I jumped up confused.

"You can talk?"

"Of coarse I can talk; but now you can understand what I'm saying."{I had to create a mind link with you so that you could, but...} He turned around and looked outside.

"A what? So that was you that entered me?" I said trying to make since of what was going on. What else can this guy do?

"Read your thoughts, but not just me, everyone if you don't keep them private." He said with out even turning around.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" I responded not liking my mind being read, "My names Bill." I added.

"Scorch," he introduced with a small nod, "Don't think like you want the world to hear, think softly focusing on privacy, or the person you want to hear your thought." He sounded like he was taught to do this when he was a baby. _Great now I have to pay attention while I think_, I thought while trying to keep it to myself, he laughed. "The mind link gives me a small view of your thoughts anyway, if I tried hard enough I could break into your mind; but that might make you go crazy and never be able to do anything on your own." he said trying to make a joke out of it, he was failing.

"So, what else is it for?" He didn't answer, "So you don't know?" He remained quiet. He let me examine his bites, which were healing extremely fast. He finally broke the silence by asking my name again and then we started talking, and became friends. We both felt as is if we could share anything with eachother, something even Tom and I don't share.

"Well," I stopped the conversation. "I'm going to fish, will you come or stay?" He would stay, "Then put that brace on the door behind me the wolves like to snoop here when I'm gone, oh, and, don't move around to much unless you want those wounds opening." he looked at me annoyed, I smiled getting the reaction I wanted. I headed down to the river and caught what I thought was enough for the two of us and headed back, on the way I heard wolves growling, I ducked into the brush, two wolves trotted by mumbling something about a drake they lost yesterday, I was surprised that I could hear them actually talk-ing. Ah so he's a drake. I walked in the bushes until I reached the clearing by the cave; I stopped to make sure it was clear. I saw some wolves sniffing by the door. I threw my spear near them and they ran off. I walked cautiously to the door and asked Scorch to let me in. I filleted the fish, dumped the guts and bones in the far back of the cave, and cooked the fish. Scorch inhaled most of his, till he choked on a bone, which was rather funny to watch, and slowed down. Over the next few days Scorch and I became close friends.

Later that week, on my way to fish, I saw a wolf speeding up the road, I jumped and hid in a bush, luckily he hadn't seen me. Once he had passed I got up and walked on toward the river, and speared a few more fish than the last time, Scorch's hunger seemed to be insatiable. On the way back, I saw the door was wide open. I ran inside and saw a wolf pinning Scorch to the ground, I threw and hit the wolf with the butt of my spear knocking him off I reached for another spear when Scorch bit and held my leg. {He's a friend}. I set the spear down and Scorch let go.

"Sorry, I thought you were a local."

"That's alright," he growled. "You do any damage."

"Bill this is timber." Scorch introduced.

"Hello" I greeted.

"Hello, I'm here to escort Scorch back to the city, and the sooner we leave the better." Timber announced.

"Well then, shall we be off?" I asked.

"Not you…" Timber began but Scorch cut him off.

"Bill should come with us; after all I do owe him for saving me from the wolves." Scorch looked at Timber, begging, he said something I couldn't hear, Timber nodded.

"Alright you can come."

{Why wouldn't I be able to come?} Scorch didn't answer.

"Get your stuff, Bill, was it, and we'll be on our way." I packed up my stuff all the while wondering what I had got myself into. When I had all I would need, we left.

"How far is it?" I asked looking back at my home.

"A few days run," Timber called, "can run it?"

"Yeah right," I called back.

"Then it will take four-to-six then if we don't get attacked or Scorch's leg opens." He said irritated. We had gotten lucky and Timber hadn't opened it roughhousing with Scorch.

"I'm sure we'll be fine." Scorch ended. As we walked I hinted the way, Timber didn't enjoy me helping; detouring us around quick sand and other perels the wolves had showed me. Some of the local wolves came to check us out, when they saw Timber they were very respectful of him, makeing me wonder who he was.

"This is in our territory so we should be fine anyway" Timber said coolly.

"They chased me from Proven Cave." Scorch informed.

"Well then well need to be on our guard, if the came that far in." Timber said changing opinion quickly we went on.

{Proven Cave,} I asked Scorch, he had taught me how to communicate telepathically, {what's that?}

{Nothing,} he didn't want to talk about it for some reason.

{So you said this mind link will help us share abilities right?} Scorch agreed. {So, what abilities do you have?} I asked. Timber had said something about setting up camp here and getting a fresh start in the morning.

{Fire, like the rest of the nation, some things I'm going to show someone i just met, and a few other abilities I learned from my lore book.} Scorch replied while setting up camp. {But the book is only for dragons, or is supposed to be.} He said trying to remember something. Timber saw me standing around doing nothing and told me to go collect firewood. I did al-though I didn't think he wanted the wood as much as to talk with Scorch. I took my time and went slowly back to the camp. I knew they didn't need the wood cause I saw firelight coming from the area.

When I came closer I heard fighting. I crept up so that I sneak up on any attackers if there were any. I got where I could see the campsite and saw that Timber and Scorch were grappling. So I walked in and set the firewood down and watched. When Timber noticed me he stopped Scorch. "Don't stop on my just be-cause I'm here."

"That's not why were stopping, we want you to join in." Scorch called

"Um, that's ok I'd rather watch and learn." I replied

"Like your going to learn that way, you need to learn to defend yourself." Timber laughed

"I'll be fine"

"Really", he said turning around to face me. He bent down as if about to pounce. I got up and stood in a fighting stance like I had seen on TV. "Then defend yourself" he charged and leapt up into the air, I visualized what could have been a good counter attack, if I had the ability to pull it off. I tried it anyway and to my, Timber's, and Scorch's surprise I ran forward, slid under him, gave him a upper cut to the chest, and while he was still in the air I side-stepped beside him and did a round-house kick Chuck Norris would be proud of, to his side sending him into a tree. He didn't get up I saw Scorch applaud; but I didn't hear him and as soon as I relaxed a wave of pain, like the one before, rushed over me. My knees buckled and I fainted from energy loss.  
I woke to Scorch and Timber watching the fire burn; "How long was I out?"

"Not long, a few hours." Scorch replied.

Timber walked over trying not to limp. "So how'd I do?" I asked  
"I didn't expect you to be so fast." Timber said humbly. "Nor that you would be able to use magic."

"Magic, me?" I said confused, and Timber, who thought I was being smart, be-came irritated.

"Did you see what you did, before you did it?" Scorch asked patiently. I nodded making my head throb. "That's generally how you activate lore". He explained.

"Yeah that's what I meant, you can use it, but not very well," Timber laughed

Scorch gave him a dirty look "Train with us and get stronger, you'll be able to do things you couldn't believe." He added as an incentive. "But be warned," He added, "magic is very difficult to control use it like you did earlier in a real fight, and risk death. If you had hit me a different way and tried to hit me again you likely wouldn't be having this conversation." I never knew Timber to kid around for as long as I knew him. He always was nice and blunt like a rubber bat. "But there is a benefit to that mind link of yours. You will be able to do much more because of it."

"Yeah, yeah, we can share abilities I know that already, Scorch told me earlier."

"But there's so much more you don't know." He sighed

"My head hurts." I said trying to change the subject.

"Good" Timber said to happily "Good for pain share training." Scorch and I looked at each other blankly. "Its not hard, trust me, sit next to each other." We did, "Now Bill close your eyes and focus on Scorch, also focus on what it feels like for your head not to hurt and Scorch, vise versa." We did, "Now, Bill, reach out with your mind find Scorch, Scorch you do the same." I tried to probe with my mind, I didn't feel any-thing, but then I brushed something, it brushed back I grabbed on and held.

"Ok now what?"

"Open your eyes." When I did my headache less painful; but Scorch was gone. I reached for him, but we were still connected.  
{Where…} "Where is he?" I looked back at timber and he was as surprised as I was.

"I expected Scorch to be the host. But to answer your question look inside yourself, he's probably lost in your mind" I searched my body and sure enough there he was. "Now let go of the mind link." I reached around and broke the connection. The moment I did Scorch started growing out of my right shoulder. It was rather gross to watch. "Congrats on your first body merge, it appears Bill has a stronger will power thus the reason he was the host." Scorch looked around in a daze. "Get some sleep we have quite a hike tomorrow." We slept soundly through out the night, or at-least Timber did. We got up and ate what fish we had left for breakfast and trained a little before go-ing on. We stopped for a rest and to check Scorch's leg, which was almost completely healed; it looked like all he had was a scratch. {So what was that cave you mentioned earlier?}

{Nothing to concern yourself with} He replied harshly so I didn't push the sub-ject. We didn't see any sign of wolves, when decided to set up camp it was night. Scorch and I did everything as fast as possible, we were anxious to try and body-merge again. I grabbed a handful of wood and threw it on the fire to give us plenty of light. With Timber watching, we merged faster than the night before. "I think you're ready for the next step. I've already told Scorch how to do this before, let the merge start to complete." He explained how the merging is basically two beings becoming one, obvi-ously, then he began to go on and on about how it's a very complicated process, which I didn't really care about at the moment. Then he finally started telling me how to let the process continue. "Bill focus on a part of Scorch's body; His claws for instance." I thought about the tail, "Focus on it." I felt a tingle go through my body. I looked behind and there was a tail, an exact replica of Scorch's stuck out my rear. Then I focused on what his claws looked like, how he had three fingers with claws. My hands went numb and when I looked at them my thumb had disappeared and I had four claws in place of fingers. "Alright that's enough for now, focus on how your body looked originally and release." I didn't know why I didn't think about it earlier; I had a huge hole in my pants where the tail shot out.

"Oh, great."

"What?" Asked Scorch when he rematerialized.

"These were my only decent pair of pants I had left. I need a robe or some-thing." I changed into my cleanest pants; and I threw the other pant into the fire.

"We'll find a robe when we get to the village outside the fort, but until then," Timber reached into the fire and threw my pants back, "Keep these for training."Amazingly, they were warm, but unharmed by the fire.

"Ok." I replied looking over my pants shocked that there was no damage. We sparred a little bit, I used magic as little as possible, so I would get a full workout; but I still used it too often and wore myself out. We stopped for dinner Timber ran into the woods and brought back some berries. The fish was gone so we head no meat; but the berries tasted really good, except the green ones, I almost threw up swallowing them, Scorch fell over laughing.

"You'll get used to them." Timber smiled.

"I don't see you eating them." I threw one right into Scorch's mouth he swallowed it painfully and made a horrible face; which looked hilarious. "Not bad are they Scorch?" I laughed. He swung his tail and knocked me off the log I was sitting on, I got up and jumped on him, careful to avoid the spikes on his back and put him in a head-lock. "What was that for" I asked. Timber just sat back smirking. Scorch grinned like a crocodile, what is he up to now? He started heating up he got so hot I couldn't keep my hold, I jumped off, He relaxed and tried to cool down but it wasn't working, he was getting so hot he started to glow red and started to panic.

"Calm down Scorch." Timber said like a coach. "Look up and launch a fire ball." Scorch looked up and opened his mouth, he shot a jet of the darkest blue fire I had ever seen, it was so hot I felt like I was sitting next to a bonfire. "That was over-heat, I don't suggest you do that very often, every now and then its fine; but use it to often you'll end up cooking yourself inside-out." He warned. Scorch looked around to make sure everyone was ok. It must've really scared him. We settled down for the night, checking Scorch's leg, the bandage had burnt off.

{Scorch you ok?}

What do you think; I could have roasted you, Timber, andmyself} I should not have asked. The mind link shares Scorch's feelings with me; I could tell he was really upset, so I should have left him alone.

{It's ok.} I reassured Him.

{Thanks.} he rolled over and fell asleep.

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Okay, stupid me not just editing it and getting it over with.. well if anyone wants more review. i'll wait about a month before thinking well no one wants to read. oh plz point out inconsistencies and errors such as grammer and spelling, especially big words lik Brachiasaurus i guessed right on that one, and yes i do use spell check on Microsoft word, but sometimes the words arn't on there

If someone wants to animate... which i don't have pics or anything to do with so you would be free to do so yourself, so long as i have equal rights to say no he dosn't look quiet like that and then do a better job describing him to you.... wow i talk alot.... plz ask and i will very likely let you do so.

If you like this and any good fanfict PLZ READ the rebels howl, the board is set, and the pieces are moving for a animated version on youtube so plz read the rebels howl.

I am in no way attatched by owner ship to the rebels howl, so it's not like i'm the owner and want to ask for more readers, heck no, its a dang good manga so read!!!

P.S. Bill is the name of the robed figure behind the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

I woke in the night feeling a presence closing in, I learned later, much later, that the mind-link could be used as a sort of radar; picking up the brain waves of beings around and, at will, giving you the location of that being. That night I, unknowingly, activated it, I heard the howl of a wolf pack, which I knew well, I rushed to wake Timber and Scorch, "Timber, Scorch wake up," I shook them, "the wolves are coming!"

"What?" Timber demanded?

"Don't ask me how I know I just do,"'

"Can we take a whole pack?" Scorch cried.

"It's not the whole pack, just 3-5 of them" I said trying to calm him as much as myself.

No sooner did I say it did 4 wolves jump out of the trees 2 pinning Scorch one on me; and another, the leader, challenging Timber.

"We didn't expect to find and capture you three so easily." He said looking at me around. "Take the drake back to our territory and that thing," He looked at me.

"Scorch does this guy honestly think they can take us that easily" I dug for power and threw the wolf into one on Scorch; the other one pinning Scorch dropped dead when a fireball punched through his belly.

"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Asked Timber, "It doesn't look like you have the strength to take 3 of us on." The wolf held a jewel, which made timber gasp, he crushed it and breathed in a vapor that was inside. He ran and got next to Timber and bit down hard on his rear leg with a loud crack. _The wolf must've gained strength from that vapor_.

{Scorch well need to fuse} we began; Scorch was the host this time. I then relaxed and let the energy drain and the pain attack me, it wasn't bad this time around. Timber collapsed, the leader was going in for the kill; but stopped after he noticed we were merging. {Well this is different.}

{Yes it is, the power is almost overwhelming I feel like, how would you say it, a million ducks?}

{Bucks, a million bucks,} I laughed. {Now kick his butt.} But it was over before we even started an attack, the effect of the crystals vapor was affecting him and he ran to attack but collapsed.

"No not yet, it has never worn off this soon!" He cried then passed out. We tied him and his companions to a tree and moved the other one down wind from the camp. Timber woke about an hour later, obviously in pain; but he tried not to show it. I dug in my pack and grabbed a bottle of aspirin I had brought, and forced two down his throat, he would thank me later.

"So what do we do with them?" Scorch looked at Timber and waited for a reply

"I'd leave them for the ants;" the wolves whimpered, "but we have to bring them back with us, for security reasons we need to find out what they know, if anything."

"Ok, well leave in the morning then?" I stated and lied down and watched our captives as I fell asleep.

In the morning we packed up camp, Scorch and I spared, and were ready to headed off, "Ready to go you old wolf?" asked Scorch,

"Watch who your calling old," Timber replied smiling but it quickly vanished. He then went to make sure the ropes were "tight enough". I had checked his leg it wasn't broke as far as I could tell. When we got on our way timber informed us there was a village not far, and we could get food and drop off the wolves. We weren't going fast with his leg, but got faster as the aspirin came into effect, I decided to give him some more when we had a little lunch, despite only eating berries I hadn't lost weight, I think I had even gained. When we reached the village, there were brick houses, most of which had tile roofs, and the rest had metallic roofs. And just when I thought I'd seen it all: there were large cats, several breeds of dogs, wolves, dragons and drakes walking around the village. A few stopped and stared at me, I figured this is what it felt like for the animals at a traveling circus.

We went into a market and Timber bought some food and a robe for me, which I happily put on. The children of the village were all looking at me strange when I offered some candy, or what I hoped was candy. They ran behind there parents, who gave me very dark looks, I went and stood outside for a while. When I turned around I saw Scorch giving the children the same pieces of candy I tried to give them. I broadcasted a few choice words and before I knew it everyone turned to see where it came from. I ducked behind a barrel. Scorch walked slowly over with an I-told-you-so look on his face "Don't say a thing" I warned. He didn't until we left the village. The kids followed us out of the village until we reached some corn-looking fields they turned back.

We continued till timber could no longer walk. He was none to happy about his leg being busted up. "Ugh, were only a few hours from the fort and I can't make it." he turned and took his frustration out on a tree, we decided it would be best just to let him vent, better on a tree or a harmless bush then on us we figured. "It's only a four hours walk". Timber continued beat on the tree until he collapsed.

"To bad, it can't be helped." I walked over and held him down. "Now rest or you'll just exert yourself and it will take longer to get to the fort because you'll have to rest even longer." I don't know what shocked him more the fact that I held him down or that I was telling him what to do. "Here have some more aspirin." He took it thankfully.

"Aspirin you say, what is it?" he asked

"Its bark from a tree, it makes a good pain reliever, as you now know; and it's called an aspirin tree." he grinned; I handed out the small amount of bread and salted meat we picked up at the village and settled in for the night. When we arrived the following morning the first thing you would notice when you got past the massiveness of the wall, was the huge doors. Big enough to fit … I can't think of anything big enough, Godzilla? The massive doors swung out ward right into a market place; the stands were packed with fruits and meats. Civilians coming and going, like the ones we saw at the village but large snakes and elephants were also about, guards checking everyone who came in, seeing Timber they allowed us to pass without a word. {Wow, Scorch. The only thing missing is a few lions.}

{They don't usually come into the city, or anywhere near populated areas.} Scorch explained as if to child. {They usually keep to themselves}. We passed through the market place rather quickly, the houses were brick or stone and had either a huge stone for a roof or tiles, there was a castle near the middle of the fort with huge banners with a fire emblem in the middle hanging out windows or over the sides, when we reached it we went our separate ways. Timber went to report the wolf attack to the Council and Scorch decide to take me to his home. The way to Scorch's house was surprisingly similar to the way I went home from my Mom's work at the capital building. His house even was surprisingly similar to my own. "Mom?" Scorch called.

"Back from the cave already little brother?" A taller drake walked out of where the kitchen would be in my house. He had small wings sprouting out of his back. "Oh and you brought a pet home." I glared wanting to stare straight through his brain, but Scorch walked in front of me as if to block it. The older one circled Scorch and said something I didn't understand, Scorch looked down humiliated. No one talked for several minutes.

"Where's Mom?" Scorch asked breaking the silence.

"Out. He replied"

"Thanks." Scorch rolled his eyes and motioned for me to follow him. We went into the kitchen, also not different from mine, Scorch made something up real fast and we took it upstairs and into his room, in the same place as mine was, this was starting to get freaky. He slammed the door agitated. The food he made was actually quite good; when he cooked on our trip here he either burnt or screwed something up.

"Why didn't you cook like this on our way here?" he looked at me irritated and cleaned his plate "Ok…" I waited till he calmed down before asking again. He laughed but didn't answer and carried the plates back to the kitchen; I followed. {When are you going to get your wings?} I asked looking at his brother. He stopped cleaning the dish.

{I might not}

{What? Why not?}

{Because, the cave, Proven Cave, has a special herb in the rocks; and when absorbed into the body wings start to grow, the process takes a few days, and I never made it to the cave.} He confessed.

{So let's go to the cave, your mom doesn't know you're back yet and if your brother came…}

{No, if he learned I had to go back I would never hear the end of it.}

{So we go without him}, we were going I could tell by the way he smiled. I was glad his brother wasn't coming.

{Ok, we'll go soon as I'm done cleaning.} When he was done we walked down the road, I had been here only once but I knew this wasn't the way to the gate

{Where are we going?}

{A friend of mine, you'll need food for 3 days and he can get it for us. Though he might have to come with us I owe him big.} We walked up to a house, again where my best friend's house should be, weird. A Dalmatian looking dog answered the door "hey Pat..." A slammed door cut off Scorch. "Awe come one, your not still mad are you?"

"You humiliated me in front of the entire school."

"Hey I didn't think... Ok I did but come on if it were reversed you would have laughed and I would be over it by now." The Dalmatian opened the door again, smirking. There was a black patch on his right ear and a black spot around his eye

"Who's this?" he looked at me.

"Bill." I answered.

"Hello, Patch." He introduced. "So what do you want?" Scorch told him, Patch disappeared into the house and reappeared with a crate. "My Dads shipment came today, and he won't know its missing. What do you need it for?"

"Were headed to Proven Cave," I blurted without thinking.

"Really, and what if someone is there and you cut in on there time?"

"Has anyone gone?" Patch looked down and shook his head, which was strange to see a dog do. "Then well be fine."

"Fine, go but don't blame me if you get in trouble."He growled and was about to slam the door.

"You want to come with us?" Patch stopped, "Alright hurry up." Patch turned around asked us to wait a minute and ran off,

{Won't he get...?} I stopped my self, _doi they dogs don't have wings,_ but Scorch answered any way

{There born with it a small amount in their blood, it helps there brain growth and elemental abilities.}

{He sure can jump moods.} I smiled

{That's another thing, they always keep their face straight, some sort of rule, or tradition. Seeing him smile is rare and almost always private, and brief.} When Patch returned Scorch asked, "Shall we be off?" and turned around. There was a large Rottweiler looking beast was standing in our way. "Oh, hello Butch." {He's I guess you could say the bully around, and Patch lives next door to him.}

"Ready for your beat down of the day runt?" He looked past us to Patch, "or are these two here to protect the little baby." He laughed.

"One side." I said pushing him out of the way; he then had the bright idea to give me a reason to defend myself. He went to bite me around the waist I turned and punched him, a bit hard, right in the square of his nose. "One… side." I repeated slowly, he then turned and ran. Patch stared as butch ran down the road, and then back to me respectful but suspicious.

"Well, good job, but I think you over did it when you hit him, but anyway well be heading out the hole." I let Scorch go ahead and lead, like I knew where that was. We walked about a half mile then stopped to make sure no one was around. Scorch moved a wall of bricks that had been "left" by the builders, all put together. And behind it was a 6-foot hole in the fortress wall. Scorch complained about being too tall to get through but Patch and I went though easily enough. We walked down a well-worn trail, {this is where they ambushed me} Scorch informed about a half-hour later.

{Why so close to the fort?}

{There are rumors that the king's descendent is in this fortress.} He also thought to openly about a food shortage in unsecured lands. The thought of Scorch being made dinner made me queasy. I hoped that it had been the first one. We arrived at the cave a few hours later. I got a fire going and Scorch wasted no time going into the cave and getting started.

It got awkwardly quiet I decided to break the silence, "You want to cook or get fire wood?"

"Get the wood." He left.

{Wow, is he always this grouchy?}

{No only recently, I played a trick on him to pay him back for one he played on me. But everyone at school happened to be near by when he tripped the trap.} Scorch explained. I could see flash backs of what happened it wasn't pretty. He had put some green, sticky, slime substance over a door way, and when Patch walked through it fell along with a bunch of, what must've been feathers all over. I would have been mad for a while too.

{I see.} I took my robe off and slipped into some jeans {I won't call unless it's an emergency} Patch was Scorch's friend so I figured I could trust him. (Note, I hadn't shown myself in public, Timber thought it might cause a panic) Patch came back with some wood and sat down dropping it by the fire, he didn't notice me. I was so well camouflaged out in the open. "Food is almost ready." He jumped; I guess he spaced.

"Bill?" he asked looking at me strangely.

"No, the Easter Bunny."

"Who?"

"Yes, I'm Bill." He snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Scorch defiantly knows how to pick his friends." He laughed "What are you a hair less" he said something Scorch translated to ape." I laughed, that's original. "Though, I guess I'm not one to talk"

"Why?" I was confused he didn't seem different.

"Well having spots is a birth defect, and some other things I'm not willing to say in public." He explained.

"So he has weird friends huh?" I smiled

"Yeah." he sat back down and laughed, "Like that 'pelican' that's afraid of heights" Patch and I got to know each other much better, and he wasn't much different than my best friend, Tom.

"So, have there been any strange disappearances lately?" I don't know why I brought that up.

"Why?" he asked sharply

"Well, where I'm from there have been lots of disappearances and appearances of strange animals, like you."

"My dad hears a lot about it working in the store, and rumors of portals that appear in front of people as they walk." I had a flashback to the portal in my room and the being that opened it and attacked me. A howl from what I guessed was north, "Just the allied wolf pack." Patch reassured himself.

"Let's hope so." Patch said. A second howl, closer this time, made us jump.

"I think there looking for something." I agreed it was the same howl the other wolf pack used when they had found it.

"They found it" I reassured

"How would you know?" I explained how I had learned the howls of another wolf pack.

"Besides I doubt they could hunt here." He nodded thoughtfully; I put some food on a very large leaf. Patch must eat when he's nervous because I barely had time to sit down and start eating before he was done. When we were finished our bellies growled satisfied, "Let's get to sleep, we have three more days before he's done here." Patch laid his head on his paw and looked around one last time and fell asleep. _Why is it that dogs can fall asleep almost instantly_, I thought. He snored once then was quiet, I got up and leaned against a tree and fell asleep.

I woke with a start, a claw just missed my face, I turned slowly and there was a bear, he was missing an eye and had a deep scar on his nose. He was watching Patch sleep, if he took another step closer I would attack, but he removed the paw and walked away. When I was sure he was gone I breathed, I woke Patch and told him about the bear.

"Did he have a scar on its nose?" I nodded, "He's the protector of the cave, don't worry about him." and with that he fell back to sleep. I sighed, _that's so Tom._ Tom would always say to not worry. Especially when it was something everyone else thought was dangerous. Like his pet cobra, he lets him out every now and then; and says not to worry because poison sacks were removed; but it still hurts like crazy when he bites.

I sat back by the tree and slowly fell back to sleep. The following day went by ever so slowly, Patch told me about the bear, he's an old hermit that lives out here and protects this area. I went out for firewood and saw the bear eating red berries. I kept his blind eye facing me and turned back. When I came to the camp Patch was taking a nap. I picked up with my foot and flipped him over; he jumped up. When he realized it was me he started to moan about his nice feather bed. The hours seemed to pass like days once it was finally night we ate our last meal and went straight to sleep. Patch and I were ready for Scorch to come out. When the third day finally came I woke slowly Scorch was sitting strangely on a log with his back to me, I felt like I had been stepped on by a horse; I sat up, "My aching head!" I mumbled

"Sorry, I didn't see you." Scorch apologized

"Yeah it was pretty funny Bill," Patch laughed "Scorch almost fell in the fire pit when he finally realized he was on your head." Scorch looked away.

"Thanks for letting me stay the night Grum." Scorch was talking to the old bear.

{Hey Scorch there are two lumps on your back.} I said then realized {Oh, dui your wings are growing}. Scorch threw me my robe not even replying, I put it on. Scorch was in a hurry to get home, we made it back within two hours, and Scorch had us running half the way. We didn't even eat breakfast, but it was about lunchtime when we made it inside the forts walls. Patch went home, while Scorch and I went to his house. "Mom?" Scorch called

"Scorch is that you? Your late, three days late!"

"The process took longer than normal." he lied as we walked in, "Mom this is Bill. I met him on the way home."

"And you bring random caped figures home? No offence."

"None taken," I replied, "but I think I'll go into the other room." I left them and they went into the kitchen to talk.

Scorch came out about five minutes later. "My mom said that you can stay here and can get you a job and a house of your own."

"Will I be attending a school to?" I joked

"Actually," he started, "you will. I heard the fire lion was coming to town" he was trying to change the subject. "He's coming to choose an apprentice."

"Great, what kind of stuff will I be learning? Like Dragon-lore?" I was interested in seeing what is was all about.

{No only dragons can take the course on that, how'd you find out about that.}

{You showed me, and why can't I just get a book?}

{Look in mine.} He grabbed a book off the table and handed it to me. I opened it; but all the pages were blank. {You don't see any writing?} I handed it back, {you can get one at the library; but they wouldn't let you borrow one.} I gave up after that but I had a feeling I had to get one; and so far my feelings have not let me down.

The next day Scorch and I went to School, I was more than ready to train, when registration was complete a teacher, who was a cougar, took me into a padded room. "My name is Fury." he introduced, drill sergeant style. "My job will be to assess you're skills and see where you fit." _I'm good for three attacks_, I hoped "Defend yourself" he came at me slow I dodged his first set of attacks easily, I had read yesterday on pressure points, I nailed one, "hmm, that hurt lets jump a few notches, level five!" He roared, jumping and covering his pressure points, he came faster than before, I kicked, missed took a side step and brought my leg down on top of him, "seven!" he roared. He snapped at my leg barely missing; I focused energy into my hand and legs into a point and punched moving to fast for him to recover sending him sprawling across the room, "nine!" he jumped.

"Yield" I called. He settled down and walked over shaking, before lying down in front of me.

"Right then," He said, "you have: level 1 element, you didn't use anything pyro. Level 3-5 fighting, you held you own, but you have very little tactical skills. And your personal lore, 2 you don't have enough control." He smiled, "Remind me next time not to fight you; I'm getting a bit to old for this." A large rabbit in a medic suit came in and was shocked to see Fury kneeling and not me. The medic told me to leave, I walked out, and heard the rabbit chastising him for going so hard on his body, then something else about rabbit stew. The Elemental class was my first one to start, and it was right down the hall. Scorch saw me walk in. {Over here,} he called. Patch was on one side and an empty chair was next to him. I sat down hard and let the energy drain and pain come but it was almost nothing. No pain and a very little energy drain, I was shocked.

"So Bill were you a 1 all across." Patch smiled.

"No, just in element." I replied

"Ha, you owe me $5" Scorch interrupted.

"I was 3-5 in fighting and 2 in personal lore" I finished

"Wow." Scorch smiled {same as when I first came… except element.}

"Alright class, my name as most of you now is Mrs. Rayn." She was a dragon. She lectured us on the element of fire, most of which I understood. We'll do a basic exercise since we have new classmates." Everyone looked at me and laughed. "Well since all eyes are on you stand and say your name." I did. "Welcome Bill, elemental level?"

"One." she smiled, "But I guess that would be zero."

"Oh a clown huh"

"No, I'm serious." I snapped my fingers. "See nothin." Her smile dropped she hadn't been in this predicament. {She looks like the rabbit did when she saw I was standing and not fury.} Scorch smiled

{Be careful, it's damaged, but they will have a broadcaster up and running soon.}

"Well then Bill see me after school, you need extra work." While everyone was working on there elemental abilities she came over and taught me how to manipulate the heat from one point of my body to another, then how to create a spark. I was about to give up when, to my surprise, I was sending sparks flying from my hand. I moved rapidly from a spark to a small fire in the palm of my hand and made it bigger and bigger slowly and staying in control. When I went to fast the flame got out of control and went out. After almost completely losing control I thought about what Scorch did in the forest, unable to control the heat and it got out of control. He could and would have turned the entire forest into a firestorm if Timber hadn't taught him how to control it. Mrs. Rayn dismissed me from having to stay after school.

At fighting Scorch and I, to the disappointment of an attractive female drake, teamed up against Patch and his brother Irvine, we wore bracelets to keep from using lore to increase our abilities. I was once able to get Irvine into a choker, the coach awarded us that match but I think he would have broken out. Scorch and Patch was a close one but Scorch was the winner, one last match He and Patch were a close match put Patch won it this time, I took it easy on the half choked Irvine, big mistake, it didn't take him long to pin me, but I flipped him off of me and tackled him, _wow encouraged to fight at school._ But that brief second gave Irvine the match he brought his jaw down on my neck and the coach called it to Patch and Irvine.

The 'Personal lore' aka Magic class was basically reading books; Scorch read something on basic-intermediate skills. I on the other hand hid a Dragon Lore books under mine, for something kept in secret they sure had a lot of them around the library. I searched through the books of blank pages, and on the very last book I saw writing on the last page. "If you can read this take me home" {Scorch,} I checked for a broadcaster, {what does the very last page of your lore book say?}

{Something like if you read this take me home or something. Where is this going?} I showed him what I was seeing in this lore book and he was shocked. After a long lecture from the teacher/librarian about the use of magic and it risks, {Bill we must go see the Council}

{And why would that be?} I followed his eyes to a plaque, which read. _When a lore book is discovered it must be restrained or it will leach off of the reader._ "O come on doesn't…" I was interrupted

"SHHHHHHH"

"Sorry." I called back {Lets go,} I stood up, Scorch looked at me irritated.

{Forgetting something?} I sat back down. _Doi have to wait till class is over_, I felt so stupid. I decided to actually read the book that I had been using to hid the lore book. It was very difficult to read, the words were jumbled up in my head and they made my eyes hurt reading them. Scorch told me later that they were mind training put the words in the right order and you have a spell. A bell rung and I stuck the lore Dragon lore book into a pocket, I had sewn on the inside of the robe. I handed the teacher the book I was using and left. Scorch and I went straight from the school to the castle to see the Council. A guard stopped us Scorch said a Dragon lore book had been read and we were delivering it for a restrainer. I showed him the book as proof, and he let us by. He also gave us some I.D. cards so we wouldn't be stopped till we reached the Council chamber. Scorch gave me some pointers on how to act when we reached the Council, and added {you will be tested and be asked to do something from the lore book.}

{What did you do?}

{A super jump, it will take a lot of energy the first time.} We were stopped by guards guarding the Councils chamber, we explained and showed him the book, and he led us in. I heard mumbling about an immature drake and how rude it was for him to address the Council, and other mumblings to that effect. "Honorable Council," Scorch bowed, he threw his tail tripping me to my knees, "a Dragon Lore book has been read and needs a restrainer." I held the book up so they could see it.

"At least he has more courtesy than the last time he came." Scorch blushed as the Council laughed.

"Who read the book" a booming voice, from where I couldn't tell.

I stood "I did" the Council laughed.

"Drake, leave us." Scorch rose wished me luck, bowed again, and left, when he had the guard shut the door. One of the Council, in a long black cloak, came down to the ground level. I wasn't able to tell what he was, "Take off your hood" I did, the Council laughed. He raised a claw and they were silenced. "Ok, have the book show you something, anything." I thought about it, ah, how to shoot an energy bolt, the book started to shake. A light shone from a page near the middle, the light faded when I found the page, a word was written and a brief description of what the ability it had shown me was capable of. I did what the instructions said to do and pointed my hand at the wall.

"Asoroth!" I called a beam of light appeared in my palm and a white beam shot and put a hole in the wall. I heard gasps of awe and amazement. Then the pain and energy drain came, the Councilman was laughing, the pain left and the energy came back.

"You didn't have to use such a high level technique." He laughed

"Yean I'll remember that." I replied he laughed and put a metal thing on the book

"For the first time in our lifetimes another species has read a lore book. Go and tell no one of this" {That is except your partner out there.} I bowed and left Scorch was waiting for me.

"What did you do?"

"Shot an energy blast."

…

"Senior, that book he had was level 20." One of the Council members spoke

"If he joins the enemy he will be our worst nightmare," Another one called

"Yes, that is true; but his friend is the next in line." The Council member informed. The rest of the Council began to mummer and argued amongst themselves about what the senior had said.

…

When we got home Scorch's mother had made us fish for dinner. I was starving, the lunch, if you could call it lunch, we had at school was long gone, but Scorch poked at it.

{What up?}

{I can't wait till these wings grow; then I won't be looked down upon anymore.}

{Don't wish away youth, the years pass faster and faster each year.} _Where did that came from_. Scorch just smiled

{Yes o' wise one} he started eating.

{Hey, I just realized this, but I haven't seen your father} he glared deeply. I wished I hadn't asked. There wasn't even a photo, but I'd just ask Scorch's brother, he couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. He told me how their dad had lead a rebellion bringing a lot of dishonor to the family, and how much he could care less about honor; which is also when I learned his name, Van. I felt bad them; but I wouldn't let Scorch know I knew, I'd let him tell me in his own time.

The city loaned me a house, and got me a job helping Scorch sort produce. The pay was just more than enough to pay for the house and other things. When I had a break I would read the lore book, it would usually glow when something appeared in the book. Scorch would help me if I couldn't pronounce a word, or I needed energy so I didn't look suspicious.

I was studying at Scorches house when I all of a sudden had a huge headache. I fell forward but Scorch caught me and laid me down on his bed. Suddenly I was in a room sitting in an office chair watching a ton of TV's. I looked from one to the other I saw, me, standing in front of two doors. I watched myself touch the door and a light made me look away. I heard a voice, _you have chosen, good_. I spun around and saw a figure dressed in pure white, the purity of the air was so strong I was forced to the ground, "Who are you?" I asked

"I am…" everything disappeared, I was home in bed. I sat straight up, a doctor had been taking my temperature, and Scorch was standing next to him.

"He's fine, there's nothing wrong with him; but here's some pain pills just incase." Scorch thanked him. When he left Scorch was quick to start asking questions, asking over and over if I was ok. I walked over to him grabbed his shoulder, "Scorch" I spun and put him in a head lock. "I'm fine," I let him go, "really I am" Scorch frowned. The man appeared in my head, his last words were ringing in my head, I am, Scorch started pacing listing reasons I shouldn't be ok. "Scorch what do you know about a man who wears a white robe?" He told me about how a god of theirs was like how I described; but he didn't know much about it the being had nothing to do with them; and only dealt with the ones of light. I went into the kitchen found some bread, mashed some peanuts, or what tasted like peanuts and mashed some fruit into jelly and made a P,B, and J for Scorch and I. When we finished eating I asked Scorch what they did for fun around here. He listed off a few things including: swimming, something resembling basketball and baseball, and a duel arena. "What's that?" I asked.

"It's an arena outside the town where we can battle each other. Patch and I would fight in the 2-on-2 matches, they have a power drainer they put on your leg to keep the attacks from killing the opponent, but it still will leave a mark."

"Sounds like fun, lets see if Patch wants to come do a 3-on-3 match or two." Scorch agreed, and Patch was more than happy to come. When we reached the arena there was a small entry fee, we paid and walked in, the arena was split up into several smaller arenas. Our first match was in arena one, when we arrived there were three wolves taking on a snake, a large hawk, and a rabbit. The wolves quickly took out the snake, the hawk and rabbit fell soon after. A voice cried out "is there no one to take on our champions, how about… the defenders?" a spot light shone over to us and we were shone into the arena. The crowds booed and mocked us.

"The defenders?" I asked Scorch.

"I couldn't think of anything else." I rolled my eyes and looked at our opponent; the wolves were drooling in excitement. They were laughing at me; they must think that I'm the weak-link of the team. How wrong they were. The buzzer rang and the fight was on, I felt energy in the air, it was leaching energy from us, the wolves circled us we stood back to back, they started shooting small tornados at us. I let one hit to what would happen; I couldn't see it but the tornado had blades in it cutting at my skin, I decided to dodge them instead. {Scorch, can mind link with patch?} I asked

{Yeah but I'm kind of busy} he called back {defense isn't getting us anywhere.}

{Then let's go offence!} I ducked beneath a tornado and charged the wolf in front of me the wolves had been waiting for this to happen, the one in front stood still while one came up blind-siding me. Scorch saw him and threw a fire ball in the way slowing the wolf down enough so I could reach my target. I remembered something I saw on T.V once and decided to try it. I punched the wolf in front in the chin sending him into the air; I jumped behind him and kicked him higher and higher. Finally I let him drop below me and dropped kicked him into the ground. That wolf was declared "dead", one of the wolves had grabbed Patch around the throat, and Patch was "dead". The two remaining wolves grouped together, as did Scorch and I, and then they started bonding, I had never witnessed the bonding only the detachment.

"O crap," Scorch groaned; the wolves, wolf now, got larger and larger, and grew a second head. A two headed Cerberus, Scorch and I also bonded, I focused on Scorch and I morphed into half-dragon, half-human. Four claws, shorter legs, longer arms, and a tail, and rock hard scales. I ran over to the Cerberus and upper-cut him trying that move again, but he just reeled back staying on two feet. I raised my arm and shouted, "Asoroth." The beam shot straight for them, the wolf smiled and took a deep breath, he exhaled sending the beam up into the roof. {Scorch got any ideas?}

{Just beat on him till he yields.} The wolf ran for us and jumped in the air they spun creating a huge whirlwind. They barreled down toward us, I jumped out of the way and sent a foot into there face. The wolves whimpered and defused, "dead". Scorch was just as shocked as I was, we defused, the air thinned out, the wolves got up and walked away not saying a word. That was the last match of the night, and we went home to celebrate, but not until after we collected our prize money. "So, have either of you ever heard of pizza?" I asked, they looked at me with blank faces. I smiled and took them over to my house. I had picked up the stuff to make it while I was at work, and decided to show Scorch and Patch how to make it. I started the oven and threw wood in till it was about four-hundred degrees. Had Scorch ground the meat and patch squish tomato like fruit into a paste. I made the dough out of water and flour; and poured the tomato paste on to it, added some cheese, and threw some ground meat here and there, and stuck it in the oven. When it was finally done, Scorch and patch starred at it in wonder, and hunger. I sliced it and served, they didn't have to say anything, the look on there faces told me I did it right. I had never made a pizza before, so I was glad it worked. I took a few slices and it was heavenly, we ate till it was gone, Scorch was licking his claws to get the last but of tomato sauce off and Patch was leaning back relaxing.

"That was one of the best things I have ever eaten" Scorch complemented, Patch agreed, they asked if they could try and make another one. It was very comical to watch them, Scorch would throw the pizza and when he caught it his claws would slice it into ribbons, and Patch hadn't put enough thickener in the dough, he threw it, he missed, and spent half the night trying to get it out. I could have made several by the time they were done making one. While Patch pulled the dough out of his hair I made two pizza bases and sent Scorch and Patch home with them.

The next duel wasn't for a few days, and school went by fast. When Scorch and I got off work Scorch and I would go and train outside the wall till dark. When duels began again we were more than ready. We won one after another when we came to our semi-finals it was against two wolves and a hare (they were bigger than the rabbits). Scorch had brought Patch into the mind link and we could three way plans and strategies. The opposing team was no match for us, we took out the wolves first, and the hare went down way to easily. By the time I realized what had happened it was too late; Scorch slammed the hare into the wall knocking him out cold. I felt the restrainers turn off just before Scorch hit the hare. "Victory to… the defenders." The crowd cheered. When the other team didn't get up paramedics ran in checking them to see if they were alright. Then they realized there restrainers had been tampered with and were malfunctioning. They told to the judges to call the battle to there team, the hare was hospitalized and sent home with a second place trophy and some cash for the bill. We were booed out of the arena when the judges disqualified us from further matches until further notice.

"This bites," Patched roared on the way back.

"Yeah we didn't mess with there restrainers." Scorch slammed his tail into a bush when he walked by.

"I bet the ones who did it were scared of us." Scorch and Patch looked at me and thought for a second

"Na" they said in unison.

"Think about, whoever broke the restrainers was scared to lose to us and was a sure win, if they framed us, we would be disqualified and they would win the tournament." They thought about it again.

"Bill your pretty smart" Patch called back, he walked up the steps toward his house. "See ya'll tomorrow." He called back. When we started walking again I thought of something.

"You know Scorch. I've never felt lonely while I was here." He looked at me funny

"How could you?" Scorch began but I interrupted.

"That's not what I mean; I don't miss my parents, my friends, or anyone from my world." Scorch looked around to see if anyone was listening.

"What do you mean your world? Are you from another planet?"

"No not another planet, I think, more like another dimension." He looked confused. I guess science fiction wasn't really a big thing since there were no TVs. "Come over to my house." When we arrived I brought down some paper and several markers, I drew several lines on the page with different markers, and took a piece of coal and drew a black line down the middle. "Ok, say this red line here is where I'm from, and say this blue one is this world." I pointed to the lines. "Now say this black line is a bridge between worlds. See all these little black specks left by the coal. Those are portals that were left behind or opened or something and were stepped through or something to that effect." Scorch nodded

"I think I get it, so you're an alien basically."

"Yeah, I guess I am." I laughed. Scorch got ready to leave it was about his curfew anyway.

"Oh yeah I forgot to tell you. The fire lion is coming tomorrow to pick his new students. Everyone who is under 20 must go." He informed.

"Thanks for telling me. It must be a big honor to be his students." I rolled my eyes

"It is, but then there's also a rumor that if you fail he eats you." He smiled back.

"Yeah I defiantly want to be picked now." I walked Scorch home. On the way back I heard something rumble in the bushes, expecting Butch I turned around and got ready to fight; but instead of seeing a large rottweiler I saw a mini one and a mini drake. "Oh are you lost" I looked around to see If anyone was watching, they nodded, "well come with me" I called the security office o see if anyone had reported missing children. There were two families who happened to be reporting the loss of there children. I told the officer where I lived and heard a cry of relief from the parent in the background. I gave the kids a slice of pizza which they had barely finished when there parents arrived. There were many thank-yous and how can we repay yous said. I decline there offers and sent them on there way and went to straight and bed collapsed, I was exhausted from I don't know what.

When I woke the next morning I went into the kitchen and saw medium sized bag of coins sitting on the table. With a note that read, "Here is your reward for returning the kids, from the Sherriff". _I should find lost kids more often_, I though. Then I remembered oh yeah, the fire lion thing was today. I ran and grabbed my robe, and ran to Scorch's house. He was already waiting outside; he must've been very excited he never got up that early. I ran and caught up with him, when we reached the market place all the stalls had been cleared out and there were bleacher-like seats built into the neighboring houses. There were drakes and dogs and cats of various ages and species there, a trumpet sounded and everyone lined up in the bleachers according to age. I was a little shocked to be a year older than Scorch. {Who does the lion usually pick?} I asked

{Usually a drake and his partner, sometimes he'll pick a dog; but he never picks cats for some reason.} Scorch answered. A few minutes later the gates opened and a drake clad in silver armor walked in, followed by another drake clad in steel. They walked a few yards and turned to the side did an about face and knelt. In came the fire lion covered in golden armor. The crowed bowed as he passed, on and overhang the Council bid him and his apprentices welcome. He turned to the crowd and roared

"Every few years I pick an apprentice, and every year I ask a question, who dares challenge me." The drakes all stood up and got in a line. "Come." the drakes came one at a time, and every time he dismissed them, when Scorch came he dismissed him, but before he called the next he looked at him. "Wait." Scorch stopped and turned the lion looked at him. "You." The lion pointed.

"Me, sir?" Scorch looked blankly

"Yes you, who is your partner." He pointed at me, the crowed said stirred. "You there come down." I jogged down the stairs. "You two will be my apprentices." The crowd cheered, Scorch smiled like an idiot, and I kept thinking, _what have I gotten myself into now_. The two ex-apprentices wished us luck and laughed.

{If we have to run, Scorch, I'm ridding on your back.} He looked back at me.

{Let's hope not}

"Drake," The lion called, "why is he your partner?"

"He saved my life, sir" he replied.

"Are you sure it's for no other reason?" The fire lion whispered something in his ear.

"Maybe" Scorch said after thinking for a while. We walked well into the night, when we got to where we were heading we saw two buildings, a shack and a mansion.

"You two will be sleeping there." he pointed to the shed "I'll check on you in the morning, sleep well." We walked into the shed, there were two beds, if you could call them beds, and hay spread around the floor. "This will be fun', Isn't that what said?" I ignored his comments and stuffed some hay into my new "bed", laid down, and tried to get some sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Part III

A loud roar shook the shed; I jumped and rolled off my bed, and hit face first,

Scorch took and offensive stance. The lion was leaning on the doorway, laughing. "If I had been an enemy you would both be dead." He smirked. Scorch and I looked at each other very annoyed. "You two need lots of training." He looked at us almost sympathetically. "Follow me" he called, we followed him to the side of the house. He then told us to carry these huge buckets almost a mile, fill them with water, and dump them in a water tower. "When you're done with that you'll have breakfast." He threw claps on our legs. "These will keep you from using your lore, I will keep them there until you no longer need lore to do your chores"

{Great,} Scorch didn't respond, {twitch your tail or something if you can hear me.}

"They also block telepathy" he looked at me knowingly. We grabbed the buckets and rolled them to the lake.

"I can't carry this bucket a mile, not full of water." I whined.

"I'll carry them and you balance them." Scorch glared. I filled the buckets and placed them on his back. Once we got back Scorch and I dumped the buckets in the tower and went to eat breakfast. The Lion soon had us sparring against each other viciously. If we stopped or went easy on each other or he would hit one of us with a fire ball for "encouragement," he also had us doing more advanced lore, other, which was fun, unlike the pussy weakling lore they taught at school. At the end of the first day he took us up to the top of a mountain, there was a large pit at the top.

"This will be your elemental goal." He turned around and began a deep meditation. After about a minute he stood strait up on his hind legs and raised his paws strangely into the air, mere seconds later a glow and an eerie roar came from the pit. Then a pillar of magma light up the sky; and the pit, which was now well lit, was actually a crater where a volcano lay dormant. "You will be able to do that by the end of your training or sooner." He said exhausted, he then warned, "You mustn't try this until I say you're ready." We followed his gaze to four headstones, and gulping hard understood his meaning.

On the way back I asked, "Sir, what should we call you?" He looked at me a little surprised.

"My students never ask of my name. They just call me sir, as should you." He went on to say that master or sensei were also a name he was given by his students, and lists of names not to call him.

"Yes sir, Sir."

He looked back at me, "Don't get smart either." A month passed and master had us fixing everything he had need of to fix, from shingles to walls, taking care of domestic farm animals, and even fences. After work we would spare and train lore, and try to find time for dragon lore. During which time we tried several ways to wake ourselves early in the morning; but no matter what we did, we always woke to a roar.

Scorch was focusing hard on learning certain dragon lore, which gave me time to play catch up and learn what he already did. I was learning stuff like the ability to transfer energy from one part of the body, unlike elemental, where you moved heat from one end to another. I also learned to control the energy and increase the function of my limbs. For example, I could focus energy into my legs to increase my running speed and how high I could jump. I could also focus energy into my arms and use it to increase my strength so I could picking up heavy boulders, barrels of water, and other heavy things. There was also lore that could heal wounds large and small. Once I had finally caught up winter was just beginning.

When the winter came everything we did became so much harder. I found out Scorch was cold blooded, so at night he would almost freeze to death. I had to moved the beds closer so I could keep him warm, it soon got to cold for that and I had Master take the bracelets off so Scorch could merge with me and stay warm. When Scorch worked slower giving me more work to do (not complaining now, for it made me much stronger, but at the time I was). when he turned blue I merged with him, warmed him up and sent him back out. When the worst of winter had past and it became a little warmer Scorch was able to work and train normally, from then everything went smoothly till.

Near the last month of winter, a strong and cold, to cold for Scorch to stay outside my body, northern wind brought the sound of lion calls. Sensei brought me/Scorch along to check it out, the lions were being called to take a private council, I/we could overhear them easily because they had to yell over the wind. "We have a prism lion around the bend, and came here to decide his fate," One of them came forward.

"We should not let him live, he is an abomination!" the others seamed to agree. _Abomination,_ I thought, _how could a child be an abomination? _Scorch wasn't paying attention or just didn't want to answer. I, quiet as a mouse, walked over to where they had the cub, he was in a cage with a blanket over it to shield him from the winds. He was an albino. I felt anger, fear, and hatred well up inside me, but also awe and respect. {What's wrong with him, why do they want to kill him?}

{He is a rare being, born when one of each of the five elemental lions dies, and another is born before sunset, the strength and power from those lions is given to that child.} he explained {He is a rare being, and rare beings are almost always very powerful and power is something we don't want to give to the evil ones. By keeping him alive there's a small chance that he may be swayed to their side; but a chance were not willing to take}

{So one must be sacrificed for the sake of many.} I understood the concept; one for the many was a logical. We heard yelling, {obviously not everyone thinks that.} we heard our master arguing to keep the child alive. {He's even begging, shouldn't we help?} No answer, so I focused on making a doppelganger of one of the wolves that attacked us several months ago, I took the cub out of the cage and handed the cage to the doppelganger; while he ran off making lots of noise we hid and tried to keep the cub quiet. When we were sure they had all passed, we crept home. Master was sitting there looking angrily at Scorch and I, we put the cub in the shed and sat submissively in front of Sensei.

"You two are in so much trouble," he glared then shook his mane, like he did when he was very angry, "or would have been if you were caught." We looked up shocked; he went and brought the cub out of the shed, and said "He is your responsibility now." He then stopped and thought a second about what he had said. "…He"? Scorch looked just as surprised as Master did.

"What, what's wrong with it being a boy?" I asked cautiously

"All albinos have been born female," He said still double-checking, kind of weirdly, "and this one is a he."

"How old is he?"

"Less than a year" Master replied

"Um, I doubt he's weaned" Scorch and Master looked up wondering why they hadn't thought that.

"Where are we supposed to get milk?"

"There's the cows." They looked at me like I was crazy. "I guess no one has ever milked a cow here before." I laughed and thought, again; _what, have gotten myself into, now, I have to milk a cow_. I grabbed a stool and a cleanish bucket, there was a calf born recently, coincidence? I herded the mother into a pin and milked her like I had seen on T.V., and believe me its NOT as seen on T.V. I milked lots of milk, put some in a makeshift bottle, and fed the cub till he fell asleep, belly several times larger than it had been. Master and Scorch had already fallen asleep before then and had gone to bed.

In the morning Master was still asleep before we got up, he must've stayed up later than I thought. I went, made breakfast, filled the bottle with milk, found the cub exploring the shed, picked him up and fed him. Scorch, who, had already been doing chores, came in and ate, I would have but I had a hand full with a squirming cub. Master walked in and began saying something about a dream then stopped when he saw the cub, sat and ate grumpily. When we had finished Scorch took the cub outside.

After cleaning up I went outside and asked Scorch, "So, what are we going to name him?"

"Why you asking me" Scorch looked up.

"Because you live here, and probably know a respectable name. We cant name him, John, or Andrew like where I'm, or can we?" I reached down and stroked the cub's head while Scorch thought.

"How about, Fang?" I asked why he wanted to name him that. He lifted his tail to show me two small holes in it. I jerked my hand away just as Fang was about to snap on it. "I bet his parents taught him to put energy into his teeth." After hearing the word parent, Fang jerked his head as if saying, I knew something was missing, and then looked up at me lost.

"Momma," he chirped, "Momma?"

"Sorry buddy momma's not here." His eyes started to tear up, "But Scorch and I will take good care of you, promise." He settled down as if saying, that 'ill do. Not a second later a white wolf leapt in front of us barring her teeth.

"Sorry, but you wont be able to keep that promise." She growled, "Now hand her over."

"There are no females here other than you." Scorch looked up. The wolf smiled

"So your saying that child there is…" she looked at him, and looked again. "No matter, hand him over," she corrected herself "I'm here to take him to our village."

{Scorch, what is she talking about?}

{Its rumored that if the albinos parents are either rich of a high ranking officer, they could live in the village; but eventually they would be forced to leave, most of the time they would be found and taken to a village where there are albinos galore.}

"No stalling." She crouched

"We saved him, so we'll take care of him so get lost."

She smiled, "I hoped you would say that." then jumped at me.

I focused energy into my hand and whispered, "Asoroth", shooting her with a bolt of energy. "I said get lost." I relaxed letting the energy drain.

"I'll be back." she threatened. No other major things happened that day. Fang watched us spare and practice till he got hungry then he would cry till one of us fed him. When the day was over we came crawling back to bed, there were blankets on the beds. Fang crawled into bed with Scorch and fell asleep. We smiled, rolled on our sides and fell asleep.

By then we had our training in a routine: we first did our chores, then we would fight hand to hand for a hour or two, then we would find herbs and other remedies to heal what the other had done to us, and use lore to do what the herbs couldn't, next would be battle lore, I would create a ball of energy and shoot it at Scorch, he would either deflect the ball or catch it and throw it back at me, we would pass it back and forth till either we got hit or the ball disintegrated. If, and when, there was a thunder storm we would draw the lightning and reflect it back into the sky, or at each other, if this didn't take up the whole day we would run up to the volcano and back.

Fang grew incredibly fast he wasn't but a year old and could speak, a little, and was learning to fight by watching us. He was already able to run at high speeds and reflect a few lighting bolts. Finally spring came and all the plants sprung to like, flowers and trees budded and bloomed in every shade and color; but all the joy left when Fang got sick. His body and mind grew so fast that we forgot he was still just a yearling. The disease, as Scorch told me, was an incurable and rare birth disease, so rare there wasn't even a name for it, it was ultimately fatal. As a last request Fang asked me to take out his two canines, as a memento to our short friendship. I agreed to do it, when he died I plucked, as gently as possible, his front canines, and also his adult canines and made two necklaces out of them, one for me and one for Scorch. We buried him out where he always sat to watch us train, so he could always watch us and those that came after us. As with all things, time heals all and we soon were back to training working harder and harder than we had, being stronger than we were the day before, wearing the necklace.

Not long after that we heard a trumpet sounding in the distance. We ran to see what the noise was all about, and there we saw a small army of albinos headed toward the mansion. When we reached the house and told Master all he could say was, "Well, we better go see what they want." We walked over to the path they would end up on and waited for there arrival. When they finally made it, Sensei stood and said, "Greetings, what brings you to our humble home."

"Were here to claim the lion cub you are hiding here." The front-most one called. Master tried to explain that he had died from the illness, and explained several times that it was indeed a he. But they still didn't believe that he was male. They would rather believe he was dead.

I finally butted in, "If you don't believe us ask the wolf who came to take him the first time." The leader turned to a wolf with a burn on her hip, and asked if it was true, she told them it was and most of them almost collapsed.

"Alright if he is dead, show me the grave." After showing her the grave we told her to search the entire area till he was happy that Fang wasn't alive. On the way to the grave site Scorch was drooling, I followed his gaze to a drake about his age, maybe younger, {Earth to Scorch, come in Scorch, this is reality calling to say wipe up your dignity}. He snapped his head back and wiped his mouth.

{What?} He replied none to happy.

{What were you staring at?} I teased, {got the…}

{No that's not what I was staring at} he replied overly defensive. {That would be forbidden.}

{Yeah well so is dragon lore to none dragons} he looked away trying to save some dignity by pretending I wasn't there. I smiled and looked at the drake, she was, I guess, HOT from his point of view. When they left, we were walking off and I turned to see Scorch staring again, she was staring back. I went over and grabbed him by the ear and pulled, "So you don't have a crush on her?" I whispered, he wouldn't talk to me for embarrassing him like that for several hours after they left.

When he started talking to me he explained that he has an arranged marriage and that only her or her parents could cancel it.

"Ouch, sorry I didn't know that."

"That's alright," he started to laugh, "She's also the first one your supposed to have a mind-link with."

"Double ouch. That's why ours is supposed to be secret." We had walked home and were ready for bed. When I laid down I something poked me in the back, "Ouch, oh, I had forgotten to give you this." I said to Scorch, holding up his necklace I had made, he put it on examining it. "It fits nice, you like?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's great."

"Good, I hope I haven't broken any tradition or anything by making these." He laughed, he didn't know of any that said you couldn't make something out of the teeth of a comrade. We said out good nights and fell asleep.

The next morning Scorch and I filled barrels, emptied them, and went to train. We went down by the lake to take a break and out of nowhere two bluish dragons shot out of the water. We jumped ready to attack, "Who are you," Scorch asked them.

"What's it to ya?" One asked crouching to pounce, he looked at Scorch then me, then Scorch again and said. "So it's true there is some freak training with the Fire Lion."

{Bill, don't lose your temper.} It was a bit late for that; but I stood my ground, "What are you doing here." The drakes didn't answer, two spears shot out of the water aimed for us. I dodged, taking in a breath, I turned to warn Scorch but the spears were to fast and hit him under the shoulder and the ribs, he fell to the ground. I looked at him in despair as to drakes came out of the water, I felt an anger pass through my body, heat began to build I felt like I was on fire. I began to over heat and I lost control, a beast was unlocked from the pit of my soul, I jet of blue flame shot from my hand devouring the two that had appeared first, the other two turned to run but I caught them, I picked one up and threw him into the forest behind, I grabbed the other one and dragged it around, I felt like I had control of my body and bound the one I had caught, I found the other with a broken leg and several bruised ribs, the other two had swam away before I returned. They must've put a barrier up before the fire reached them. Master came to check on us and found me and two half dead drakes from the water kingdom. He took the two away from me and let me attend to Scorch. I managed to make enough energy to create a doppelganger to help me carry Scorch to the shack. I absorbed the clone and rested a bit, the spear handles had burnt to a crisp. I pulled what was left of them out slowly, and took a look at the damage. The spears were serrated and one had pierced his lung and the other, two ribs. I patched up the lung as best I could and patched up the skin, reconnected the rib bones and patched the skin there also. I fused him into my body so he could heal better without risk of infections and other viruses that might be here. That meant that a there was a toll on my body, if I flexed the wrong way my ribs felt like they were torn apart; and if I rolled on my right side I felt like I was cut deeply and someone had put lemon sauce on it.

I was happy when he woke except the fact that he thought he was in an enemy body being probed; I quickly calmed him and stopped him from self-destructing his own mind. I let him out, "Chill Scorch, you're going to reopen your side." he calmed himself and laid down next to me and asked. "How long was I unconscious?"

"A few days, no more," He then asked what I had done while he was unconscious. "I was looking through your lore book to see if it had more powerful healing spells."

"You were what?" he started getting angry.

"Calm down, I don't know why I thought it would help. All I saw were blank pages."

"You looked through my lore book?" He asked feeling violated. "That's a huge invasion of my privacy." I tried calming him down reiterating that I saw nothing in the book. "And what if you had, if it was something beyond your reach, but within mine, it would have killed you." Before I could argue Sensei walked in.

"Good Scorch is awake, come Scorch we need to talk." Scorch gave me one last glare and walked off with sensei._ Well, I blew that; but then he's right. If I were ready for a more powerful healing spell my book would show me. _When ever there is something new in the lore book you kind-a just know it's there, you just get a feeling its there. Well the next few days Scorch wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't be near me unless we were sparing, then he would swing his claws and tail so hard I couldn't block. After training was finished, Scorch and Sensei were talking and I felt a feeling, I went and checked my lore book. I flipped through the pages and on the second to last one there were two words and some fine print, 'ice-fire', it sounded interesting, defiantly not something I get normally. I read the fine print.

'Ice-fire is an extremely high level lore; the first attempt will always cause the participants to feint. Ice-fire is to be performed the same way a fire ball is shot, but instead of a ball a stream of Ice-fire. The more frequent outcome is the target is frozen in a block of ice, there have been reports that, on rare occasions, targets, and area around the target, are turned into ice for very long times. Also if used alone the technique will be **INSTANTLY** fatal.'

I then read what the words of power were and ran to tell Scorch. They were still talking when I ran up, "Excuse me master, may I borrow Scorch for a few moments?" he nodded. I motioned for Scorch to follow.

"What?" He asked shortly. I told him to follow me to the shed. I asked him if Ice-fire meant anything to him. Scorch's glare turned into curiosity, then ran past me and grabbed his lore book and turned through the pages. He stopped on the last page and read it, and looked up at me shocked. "I've been looking for this for months, well every time the book gave me something new." He exclaimed

"I think that whatever decides were ready to learn something new, knew that and showed it to me to break up our feud." He looked at me like I was crazy. I asked him for his explanation, he didn't have one. "Now that you're not mad at me you might listen when I say, I'm sorry for looking at your book."

"And I apologize for reacting the way I did, and I forgive you for looking, now let's give this lore a try!" He almost yelled. We made ourselves a target, and since Scorch was better at fire manipulation, than I was he would manipulate it while I provided the energy. I gave him the thumbs up and we read the words together "Glaciuse-incendia." A jet of fire shot out of Scorch's mouth, but it wasn't hot, the fire was freezing cold, and pure white. My energy began to drain out of my body and into Scorch's. I held on with all my might to see it through to the end. Just before we blacked out, we saw that the target was turned into a block of ice; we smiled at each other and fell face first to the ground. When I woke I was in the shack, Scorch was already up and moving.

"How long was I out?" I asked when Scorch walked in. He told me, "Three days? We were out three days?"

"No you were out three day, I was out 2." He smiled.

"How long did it take for the ice to melt?" He told me it was still up, I went to see for myself, and sure enough it wasn't but a bit smaller than I remembered; and Snow covered the trees and the grass within a ten foot radius of the impact zone.

"Master said we shouldn't try that again for a few more weeks." I laughed. "Also he wants us to pull the lava from the volcano." I looked at him and asked why now? "It's been a year since we started training here; and he says if we can do that," he pointed at the ice block, "were ready to do it."

"Do you think were ready?" I asked

He looked down. "I don't know. If it's the same difficulty as Ice-fire, sell fall face first into the hole.

"Yes but the difference will be much greater since we won't work out that day." I pointed out. He had a 'yeah, but' look on his face. "Well be fine, I bet we won't even break a sweat, or two."

At the end of the week Sensei brought us out to the volcano. Master told to channel our energy into an orb and search the hole for the lava. Once we found it Scorch and I took a huge chunk and brought it up, we got about halfway with it and we couldn't lift anymore. We let some of it fall making it lighter and then pulled some more. Then pulled and pushed the lava into the air. Setting it back down into the hole we let go as soon as it was all in. The power drain on us was enormous, as expected, but we hung on to consciousness till the drain diminished. Master said that we were the second to learn to control lava as soon as a year, second to him and his partner. We celebrated for most of the day, after our chores of course. Scorch and I woke op the next morning and waited, we knew sensei would jump us this mourning; but this time we had laid a trap we watched the door swing open and snap shut, the trap had worked. Scorch and I went out to meet him. As planned a rope had grabbed him around his leg and shot him into the nearest tree, ten feet away. When we walked over to greet him he looked sharply at us and said not to speak a word. When I stopped gloating enough to cut him down, he fell with a thud. Not too happily but very proudly he turned to us and said, "You two have come a long way since the first day you runts came here. Also, you caught me using a…" I told him it was called a snare, "snare." He continued, "You both are very good fighters, but only one can wear the silver armor. Tonight you will sleep in the mansion in your own beds, in separate rooms. For today you will gather herbs and work, alone, on fighting techniques. I will put the anklets on you so you won't have to hold back, the duel will be tomorrow, now go." He ended and turned, I walked up behind and asked.

"Master, did you learn anything from the dragons that attacked Scorch?" he asked why I wanted to know. "Because if he's in danger, I want to know what I'm going to have to fight to protect us." He led me into the house and told me to wait in the den. He got out a big map and asked if I knew anything about there history, I told him no.

"Bill about fifty years ago a wave was sweeping our world. It started here in the fire kingdom, and moved outward." He began, "A lone drake was gathering men to create a 'free kingdom' where 'tyrants' like our kings and queens couldn't touch them. He went from kingdom to kingdom," he pointed out the areas with a paw, "All the while he gained power, he led his followers to the outlands, where he used a dark lore on them." He stopped to explain a few things. "Now did you notice that the people in the fire nation tend to have a red tint, and that the water drakes that attacked you had a blue tent?" I nodded. "Well this lore had such a dark effect on there minds it turned there body

Egg* takes 3-6 years to hatch

completely black, and there hearts evil." He paused to point toward the southern area.

"Now we in the kingdoms had no idea what was going on in the outer realm until it was to late. For ten years they went unnoticed making weapons and armor that could match the ancient dragon scales. They were also making huge war machines that would end up demolishing our walls. After another five years a massive army was lined against our southern border and marching toward us. The water nation, then the electric, then ground and plant regions, one kingdom, two races, we sent many troops to assist the air nation but to no avail, the lore that the invaders used must have been ancient and forbidden. All of the remaining forces from all five kingdoms were in our fire nation. Our fire tempered walls stood long against the machines, till His lieutenants showed up. There were five of them: a bear, a dragon, a snake, a wolf, and an elephant. All personally trained by The Leader." I asked why he called him, Him or The Leader, if his name was forgotten or lost. "No that's not the reason," he almost laughed, "his name is Morthgar." When he said the name the earth trembled and the house shook violently. "That is what happens when you say his name, so we just call him, Him; but back to my story. "We, lions, were brought in to destroy the lieutenants, but even we failed. When we arrived the five had created a huge fissure obliterating our defenses. All the royalty were brought to the fort you lived in before I came and taught you; and that's where we made our final stand." He then explained that further to the north are he light beings, they devote there life to being pure and holy, and if any being were to go in after the age of one year, they would die instantly due to there imperfection. "Just after the war began the Fire Queen had an egg, and now with the Queen away at war the egg stayed in the care of a poor family member*. The 10 Kings and queens stood in there armor ready for battle. They charged with all the forces they could muster strait into the heart of the battle. They used the most powerful lore anyone had ever seen, from summoning huge beasts to freezing enemies for miles. They destroyed 3 of the five lieutenants and were almost to victory when He showed up, Clad in a diamond armor no blade could pierce. He went through the lines one by one and took down the royalty till the water King and the fire Queen and King remained. Just before He smote the three of them the 3 kings and Queen summoned one of the greatest beings know to us, Death. Death summoning took nearly all the strength the three of them had; unfortunately summoning death was a double bladed technique. You summon him you pay, with your life; as a cruel twist of fate a drake assassinated the water King, the payment wasn't fulfilled and death's sting lost its grip. The body of Him was broken, but the spirit lived on, taking the body of the drake he ran to the far south. We haven't heard from him or his 3 lieutenants since."

I was even more confused now than ever, "And what did this have to do with my question?" I asked.

"Well first off you wanted to know who might be after Scorch, I just told you." I looked at him like he was crazy. "Who do you think might be the son of the King?" the light clicked in my head.

"Scorch is the son of the king?"

"Not exactly, the egg hatched to be a beautiful female who all the guys loved, one of 'noble' blood married he and gave her a child and left, a second man came into there life and nearly destroyed the families reputation, but gave her a second son." _Who was Scorch._ I figured out

"Does he know?" I asked; but obviously not, or he might have said something. Sensei said not to tell him though he would not tell me why. When I left I found Scorch mending a deer that he had hunted and caught, then I made the second biggest mistake of my life. "Hey Scorch, I just noticed but, aren't your wings big enough for you to fly with?" I thought they were big enough but Scorch just looked at me like, what are you talking about, then he looked at his back and shook his head like he just go hit with something.

{You know, I just noticed they were there.} I almost fell face first into a tree I was laughing so hard. {What?}

{Look at the size of them, tell me how you couldn't notice there weight.} He blushed a little.

{If something grew out of your back over a year would you notice it, if you never wore a robe?} He had a point, but still, to not notice something you almost had a fit about not getting, it was rather hilarious. "So shall I go try them or wait till after the duel?" we decided waiting was not an option. He let the deer go and ran off toward the mountain. "I know the best place to try first; I found it while looking for some violet lotuses." He called to me. For the second time I was in this world, I was worried the, first being when I saw Timber on top of Scorch, He had found a canyon in the valley. The cliff he was going to dive off was at least one hundred feet straight down.

"Shouldn't we try a first flight somewhere where there aren't sharp pointed rocks on the bottom?" I asked, he pointed at a cliff higher than the one we were at. "Never mind, this one's fine." I took a step back and Scorch unfolded his wings, fully extended he had a twelve-foot wingspan. He also was now about three feet taller than I was, he had grown three feet in a single year, and he took a step back and ran off the cliff. I ran to the cliff and he blew past straight into the air. {Don't look down,} I joked, {you think you can get high enough to glide to the house?} he nodded trying to keep his concentration. {Ok come when I tell you.}

{Where are you going?}

{To fill water barrels, you'll see} I ran to the house and grabbed three barrels and filled them to the brim, deciding to just haul them to the cliff I stacked them on my back and hauled them to the cliff. Scorch was doing aerial acrobatics when I arrived and called Scorch over.

{I thought I was to fly toward the house?}

{I changed my mind now land but please don't knock over the barrels.} He landed not very gracefully, and walked over.

"Why do I think I'm not going to like your idea?" he asked. I shared my idea with him; he looked at his back, looked at me, and looked back again.

"And what if I can't hold your weight?"

"I was hoping you would ask that." I pointed at the barrels, "You'll fly with these on your back, until your used to it, then I'll put another one on, then another till your used to it then ill hop on." I explained. He agreed, I placed the first one on his back and he carried it easily. When he flew by I dropped another on his back, and the same with the last one.

"So, you ready to ride?" he asked. I started to make an excuse not to ride when he wrapped his tail around me sat me on his back and ran off the cliff. I screamed and shut my eyes. {Ok, ok I'll land you big baby.} He said he jerked to a stop. {There, happy?} He asked I opened my eyes; we were gliding over the canyon. I snapped my eyes shut, but not for long. {Bill, why is there liquid on my back?} H asked. I slowly looked down to see that my legs were torn to shreds by his scales.

"Land!" I called. He found a decent place to land. I jumped off behind him mended the front of my clothes and turned around, before Scorch realized I was off; I grabbed a barrel and threw the water on him to wash off the blood. Heating himself to dry off he threw a barrel of water on me. I healed my butt and calves and mended my clothes before turning around to show Scorch nothing had happened, he wouldn't believe me though. I then noticed short spikes poking here and there out of his back,_ no more flying till I fix that._ "Lets head back we need to train while there's still light and gather some herbs. I started off. He stopped and stared at my back. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah. Hey Bill, you missed a spot." He poked my back through the hole. _Oops._ "Oops, my tail." He ended, "Race you back." I finished mending the hole.

"Hey no fair you had a head start." I called back. I gathered healing herb as we ran; putting them in my pockets I had quite a few before we made it back. The last few hours we had, Scorch and I trained as hard as we could and when it was time to rest we slept better than we had in a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

"The Prince will duel his partner tomorrow." Reported a werewolf, clad in deep-red armor, and twin blades set in leather sheaths his back.

"Then we will havve to do thissss tomorrow thhen." Hissed a serpent also clad in green armor with spikes lining his stomach. A drake, in black and green armor, sat quietly listening intently on there plan. A fourth character sat outside the fire light, but her outline was still visible, a tigress, clad in light blue armor, her blue spiked helmet fit perfectly over her head showing only her snout. "Nothing to sssay?" taunted the snake.

She growled menacingly, "Just leave me the lion."

"Alright then." a fifth voice called from above, a six foot raven fell from the sky smoldering the fire. "Corran, Slither, and I will take the prince, Ling, you take the kid and show him how the jobs done." The raven bore a star with a square in the middle, symbol of the chi-star gang.

…

I woke up to find my self on the ground in the middle of the woods with a training anklet on me. I reached into one of my robes pockets and found everything I had gotten ready the night before, a few kunai, (throwing knives), and a sort of gun powder, or quick-smoke as it's called here, in bags in my pocket. I cut some cane down and filled the hollow area with gun powder; I had learned how to make flash-bangs by watching Mac-Gyver a lot, and playing with fireworks. We had been told the night before that if were hurt to badly we would be considered "dead" and teleported out of the area. So I began making my way toward where Scorch should be starting off.

Scorch also woke to find that everything he asked for was in a sash, he created a stun potion from herbs he gathered yesterday, and blindness and paralysis potions, temporary of coarse, but potent none-the-less. Wires and springs were also in his sash and some kunai as well. He ran forward to where he hoped I would be and started putting to gather a trap. Placing a trip wire near the ground he connected it to a spring which would launch a potion. Setting up a few more he laid as flat as possible and waited.

…

"Where is slither, I told him not to wander off," demanded the crow.

"Here I am." Burped the serpent, a feather was sticking out of his mouth. "Jusst catching breakfasst." He hissed.

"You can eat the prince's partner once we catch him," barked Corran.

"Or I can eat you." said Slither staring down Corran.

"Enough, if we want the prince to cooperate we must have his partner, so no one is being eaten." commanded the crow.

"Why did Lee-Fang put you in charge, bird-brain?" The Ravins stare was so intense Slither felt as if his soul was being bored into.

"Because I'm the most qualified…" before he finished his sentence he walked straight into a barrier. "What the, a barrier, who puts a barrier up in the middle of a forest, i thought i told you idiots to drop the barrier?" Corran ignored the bird and walked up to the barrier.

"It's not ours, it's the lions." He punched through the barrier, pulled it open and walked in. "Come the hunt is on." He howled.

…

After walking about a mile I came across a trap, a kunai was thrown from a tree above me, a grabbed mine and threw it to deflect the other but another came at me from the right, I barely jumped out of the way, I dodged a third and hid behind a tree.

…

Hearing a kunai hit a tree, Scorch knelt even lower to the ground and waited.

…

Dodging from tree to tree I watched carefully for trip wires and other traps. Moving in a large circle I thought I had avoided the traps, but I look down and there was a wire around my leg, I see a bottle with liquid in it flying after me. I dodged it and kept on moving. I looked around a tree and saw a tail sticking out of a bush, lighting one of my flash-bangs I threw it into the bush and prepped a kunai. I felt a thud and fell to the ground, I couldn't see, and my body wasn't responding, the potion, I was down wind of it and the fumes must have been the weapon. Waiting for Scorch to come taunt me I sat there irritated that I had fallen into such a trap. I felt something stab into my chest and fell forward. I woke up in the same spot I had this morning, the anklet chimed 'point Scorch'.

{Good job, well I won't fall for that again.} He didn't hear me because of the anklet; I caught him by surprise with three flash-bangs and threw three kunai (into his back.) I watched Scorch dematerialize and I stood once again where I had started off. The anklet chimed again point Bill, error, second point Bill, winner Bill; it chimed again and fell off. Scorch screamed in my head, I ran as fast as I could through the woods, when I arrived a huge snake hag its coils wrapped around Scorch, his stomach armor was lined with spikes, and was digging deeper into Scorch every time he struggled. "Scorch," I cried but was cut off by a werewolf, scary as he looked it didn't matter he was in my way and nothing was going to stop me. I expected the beast to take over again but nothing happened. I tried to get past but the wolf wouldn't let me.

"Your opponent is me." He growled

"Back off stink breath." I pushed him and reached for a kunai. "I'm no longer restricted, this will kill.

"I'm so scared, you going to give me a acupuncture?" He pulled twin swords out of a sheath in his back, "Go I'll catch up to you when I have him bound and gagged like his friend here."

{Scorch, can you hear me?} I called, I felt him nudge me. {Over heat and get that snake off you.}

{And catch the whole place on fire?} I didn't hear him; I was too distracted by the wolf slicing at me with two scimitars. Throwing a kunai into his claw I made him drop one. I rushed in, grabbing a vine off the ground, I broke it free, wrapped it around him and jumped caring us both into the air. At twenty feet I used a burst of flame to spin us in the air. I twirled us around until all I could see was a blur. Then let go and pushed off, throwing him spinning into the ground, breaking his neck into thousand pieces. Dazed but no worse for the ware I looked at the snake, Scorch was unconscious.

"Don't come any closser," he hissed. "Or I'll break him in two." He started to pull away, I had my lore book in my top pocket, it started to hum, and I pulled it out and head the instructions quickly on a new lore. 'The mighty fire ball, Drakes are impervious to it but snakes fear it beyond anything.' speaking the words of power I shot the fire ball at the snake. The fire engulfed the serpent but disappeared into a smoke cloud, _Damn_ _a doppelganger_. I knelt at Scorch's side and looked at his wound's, there was nothing that needed immediate attention, so I fused us together and taking upon his pain.

{Scorch, wake up.} I called to him. He woke in a daze, {it's alright, and it's me Bill.} The snake slithered up behind and attempted to coil around me, I pushed him back and turned around to face him

"Ssso you merged withh the drake did you, Bill?" he asked in a threatening way.

"Know my name do you serpent, what's yours?"

"Slither the golden toothed." He opened his jaw and let a fang hang down, made of pure gold. "It would be easier if you would come with us peacefully."

{He's stalling Bill.} Scorch warned.

{Let's find out where he's from and who sent him.} Scorch growled nervously but settled down. "Who is your boss?" I asked him

"You are not worthy enough to know."

{Well that's all I can think of to ask him. Shall we begin?} I began to further the bond between Scorch and I. Scorch's body began to blend with mine: his tail grew out of my back, my fingers melted and hardened into four claws, my thumb was gone, and wings tore a hole in my back. My arms and legs shrunk about a foot and became thicker. I ran for the snake, as fangs grew where my canines were, but was stopped short by a raven, as tall as a man, punching us strait into the ground.

"Foolish being did you honestly think fighting us would be so easy?" The crow mocked. Scorch started to stir, wanting to take over. Slither began to wrap around trying to constrict us, smiling like an idiot. Scorch demanded to take over, I had no better ideas so I let him. I let go of control of my body and let him take over, he started to heat our bodies to boiling temperatures, and he was going to over heat and shed the snake like a hot coat in the summer.

"What are you doing?" Demanded the snake, his lost his grip on us, Scorch took advantage of the moment and flew straight up into the air, landing a few feet away, he let go of the heat. He/we looked down releasing A stream of fire from our mouth, which had now become a dragon's snout, straight at the serpent; he disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Scorch began to shift his aim toward the crow but the fire died before it reached him, the real snake shot out from under the ground, knocking us into the air, where the crow had created a tornado and slammed it into our backs; throwing us back to the ground.

The crow landed next to the snake and mocked, "That was merely a taste of our heaven/hell formation." He grinned, Scorch had been knocked out by the force, I began to take over, "only a fraction of it, but fortunately for you, were not allowed to kill you, at least not yet." He smiled

I struggled to my feet, "That just means, I have the advantage." Our face was mine again. "I don't have to hold back."

"Ready for more I see, we hoped you wouldn't give up that easily." They took battle stances and got ready to fight, _splitting them up would be the best way to beat them_, I thought hopefully. I leapt into the air and flapped my wings; I then quickly looked through Scorch's memories and what he learned about flying, taking hold of that I learned to control my wings, sloppy, but efficient enough to keep me in the air and moving. I flapped hard for altitude and, taking hold of Scorch's flying instincts and, newly found, love of highest I went into a free fall, getting ready to skewer the crow if he would let me. The g-force woke Scorch up, takeing a quick glance at the situation Scorch told me how to fold my wings for better speed and what to do when they counter attacked. The crow looked up scoffing and took off after me; I quickly killed some speed, the crow began to spin rapidly, looking like a razor sharp tornado. I began to launch fire at it, he slowed down enough for me to block his attack and claw at him with my hind legs, feathers and skin flew off both off us as we clashed in that air, for several minutes the Ravnen and I were locked clawing and punching, blocking and dodging each others blows, Scorch began to loan me strength and intensify our blows.

{Bill the snake, he's chanting something.} I looked down, he was beginning to launch an attack; I looked at the snake and shot the massive fireball at him, his attack, an earthy sphere collided with the fireblast, but his was incomplete. air within the sphere expanded and exploded, sending him reeling and us flying back.

"Slither!" The raven looked at his partner; I took the momentary advantage and punched clear through the crow, sending him sprawling to the ground. I looked at my arm, now covered with blood, shocked that i had just killed someone I looked from the bloody mess that was my arm, Scorch made me look back then at the raven confulging on the ground.

{He was our enemy, if he was allowed he would have done the same to us.} I looked at the snake; he was lying on the ground sprawled out perfectly. {Is he dead too?} Scorch asked. I raised a fire wall encircling him, Slither stirred and glared at us.

{Lots of snakes where I'm from play dead, to fool there prey or predator that there dead or toxic.} I stated. Looking back toward the house, I stared in shock; there was a pillar of smoke rising from the area. Leaving the snake imprisoned I flew as fast as possible to the house.

{There must be more enemies at the house; these ones were sent to capture us, what are the objectives of the other ones?} I couldn't answer, Scorch was a prince in disguise, and who else would they be after. {Sensei, there must be other ones after him!} I landed and defused from Scorch. "We must find and help him." We crept around looking for signs of the enemy, when we reached house we crept as quiet as possible. I looked around and saw a patch's of black and reddish-tan fur, masters was obviously the tan, but what was the other? When we reached the front of the house I saw a dragon, I grabbed Scorch and pulled him back behind the wall. On a second glance he wasn't much older than Scorch he also had a blue tint, he was watching something with great interest, I could hear a clanking of metal in the direction of where he was looking. Scorch and I snuck up on him, CRACK, stepping on a stick I moved quicker,

"Caw, back already?" He started to turn, I wrapped a tripwire around his mouth, and held it shut; Scorch grabbed him and dragged him behind a wall. I pulled a kunai out of one of my pockets and held it to his neck,

"I'm going to take the wire off your mouth, scream and it _will _be the last thing you do." he nodded carefully, I thought he was going to crap himself by the look in his eye. Removing the wire I lowered the kunai and let him go, Scorch, however, held him tight and wouldn't let go. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

He away and sighed, "I am Koda," he answered, "We were sent here to capture a drake and his partner." He practically whined, Scorch thought for a moment then had a stunned expression, and asked.

"Koda what?"

"Koda Stone-Shoulder." He claimed prideful, but with a hint of shame in his voice. Scorch almost let go of him.

"This is the runt of the head water general, Kioga." Scorch said somewhat mockingly. Koda hung his head.

"Yes Koda, of the great Stone-shoulders, caught behind enemy lines." He moped.

"Way behind," Scorch laughed, I kicked him in the leg. "What?" he said like a little kid being slapped by there parents. I pointed at him, he was holding back tears, Scorch looked away sourly, I rolled my eyes and looked around the corner, and I saw sensei and a tiger in a fierce fight. She looked at where Koda was supposed to be, she then let out a fierce and angry roar.

"She's calling me," he said somewhat scared.

{Scorch, I really don't like the idea of fighting someone sensei is having a hard time fighting.} He agreed and let Koda go, "Betray us and…" I let the threat hang. He looked back at me and then ran to where he had sat before. I continued watching the fight, while Scorch decided to make sure there was no one sneaking up behind us; he saw something move and pulled me down, just as he did a knife stuck in the wall where my head was. He then jumped in front of me and two knives shot deep into his side, he collapsed with a yell, I looked over him to see Slither getting ready to throw more. I pulled out the knives from Scorch and sealed the wound. There was nothing I could do to save help him, the only thing I could think to do was use the ice fire, it would take all the energy we had left to use, but we would be alive. I took a deep breath and called the words of power from my memory, "Glaciuse-Incendia!" a beautiful blast of white-fire shot from my hand. The whole area, no just the impact zone, began to freeze over; Scorch was covered in a blanket of snow, as the humidity froze in mid air. The trees turned from green to brown then to a brownish clear white, Slither tried to escape but froze and became an ice sculpture, the ice crept up my leg and cemented me standing up. When the ice stopped coming from my hand all I could do was fall over and unconscious.

I woke who knows how long later, the ice had melted off my legs and I had collapsed in a heap. I remembered Scorch was under the ice; his body would shut down if I didn't unbury him, I light a fire and began melting the snow in front of me. After a while I felt nauseous, and stopped to rest; after resting several times I found a scale, digging as fast as I could, a uncovered Scorch's arm, pulling as hard as possible I dragged him out of the ground. I checked to see if he was ok, his pulse was slow, as expected but he wasn't breathing at all. I tried all I could to start him breathing again, but nothing worked. Exhausted from the effort I collapsed over his body.

I woke several ours later in a warm bed, I was to tiered to sit up, and I fell back asleep. I woke again to the sun shinning in my eyes, it was morning, I shot straight up. Master was sitting at my door, in no mood to be polite I asked where Scorch was; and what happened while I was knocked out? He patiently explained told me that Scorch would be fine and that it didn't matter what had happened, and told me to follow him. I grabbed my robe and followed, he took me to a room in the basement, in a separate room Scorch was laying unconscious on a table, a thick sheet of glass was all that separated us from his room, I touched the glass and it was freezing. I told master to warm the room, but he stopped me. "It's your fault he's in there." He explained, I glared at him, _he better have a good explanation for this_, I thought. "When you used that ice-fire technique, you covered Scorch in a layer of snow, right?" I nodded. "The sudden change in Scorch's core temperature caused him to go into hibernation like state, in which he could stay for months till the weather warmed up. His breathing becomes undetectable and his heartbeat slows to a near stop." I looked over at Scorch worried. "There is nothing to worry about, you saved him." I looked back confused, he then explained. "With his heartbeat and breathing slowed he saves a ton of energy, with which he can heal himself." I understood what he was saying, _it makes since,_ I thought, _he is cold blooded so his body would slow down. _"There are two draw backs though, one he must be warmed slowly, and two his subconscious will let nothing pass into his mind." I asked him why, he sighed and then explained. "If there were a fire spy in water or air territory and he was frozen, the enemy would break, or at least attempt to break, into his mind; and with the information he could give, it could destroy our kingdom." He then instructed me on how to merge with Scorch, tap into his subconscious and shut it down temporarily, and then raise Scorch's core temperature. He instructed me on how to shut down his subconscious, and what to expect when I entered his mind. I went into the room with Scorch; the room had to be below zero, I sat next to him and began to merge with him. I decided Scorch's subconscious could wait, and went strait to warming his body. I felt his body temperature rise, and his conscious rub mine, I then felt a barrage of attacks, his subconscious was trying to kick me out, I retreated out of his mind and demerged some; after that the attacks stopped. I probed Scorch's mind for a weakness, I couldn't find one, I began pouring my heat into Scorch to warm him. After several hours, the room had been warmed as Scorch's body was warmed, I felt Scorch brush against me again, this time he was awake and asking a lot of questions. I finished demerging and sat down hard.

Master came into the room a few minutes later, I was annoyed and tired, and Scorch was sitting there with a stupid how did I get here look on his face. Sensei greeted Scorch, and after asking us to follow him, he began to tell us what had happened. "An old rival of mine, Lee-Fang, came to settle a score with me. We have fought many times before, she won several times. She had ambushed me, about where I found you two," he began, "I barely enough time to get out of her way before she pounced on and broke my back, her beautiful blue armor made it very hard for me to get at her, but it wasn't built o with stand my blows," he said almost mockingly. "We had been fighting for hours, something distracted her, I took the chance to teleport her back to the water kingdom, or somewhere close probably in a lake somwhere, which drained my energy almost completely, I looked around, laid down, and rested for a while, when I woke up I was shocked that I was covered in a blanket of snow. About that time, Bill must have woken up and dug you out of the snow, Scorch. I called for my friend Grum." He twitched his tail to an open room where Grum, a large bear, was sleeping. "He came and helped me pull you both out of the snow and melt some of the ice. While we were melting some of the ice, we found him." Sensei opened a door and Koda was strapped on his side to a table, glaring coldly at us. "His hibernation was not as deep as Scorch's and he recovered quickly, I remember seeing him walk back to where he was before, from the general area I found you two. Do you know him?"

"Yes," I snapped, "He's Koda, Stone-shoulder; he's a trainee of the four that attacked us."

"Oh, so you're old Stone's kid" He Sensei laughed to himself, "His father and I were good, no, the best of friends. Until our two nations bickered about the land they should receive after the war." He paused and enjoying some old memories. "So, what are you going to do with him?" He asked us. Scorch and I looked at each other thinking the same thing. _Why is he asking us_? We thought for a minute

"What do you do with P.O.W'?" I asked.

"We send them to mine with the Ants; they work you till your debt is paid off then send you to your home."

"Liar!" Koda butted in, he poured pictures out of his memory, many species going into the ant hill, and only bones coming out. I looked up to Koda, rage showed in his eyes and a bitter sadness was pouring out of his thoughts. "The ants have never released a prisoner; they work you till you drop, then…" he fell silent. Scorch and I both agreed that wasn't acceptable. We thought about what to do with him for what felt like hours, Sensei was reading a book he grabbed from what seemed like nowhere. I finally got an idea.

"Sensei, what if… we were put in charge of him?" I asked, "If we put a training anklet on him, he couldn't run without us knowing where he was, and he couldn't kill us in our sleep or something." Sensei looked at me, read a nother line in his book, and looked back.

"I just know I'm going to regret this, but." He stopped and grabbed a training anklet out of nowhere and put it on Koda. "He's all yours." He released Koda from the table, I came over and offered my hand to help him off, he swat it away, glaring.

{What's the big idea? You couldn't have told me of your plan before you asked?}

{I knew you would say no.}

{You're right I would have.}

{The big idea though is, if we get on good terms with Koda, we might get on good terms with his dad.} Scorch put two and two together.

{And he would owe us for saving his son from the ants.}

"Exactly" I said aloud. "Koda come with us." I invited.

"Where?" He said sharply.

"To where you'll be sleeping." He looked around and sighed, and then followed us. We took him to the shack, "Either Scorch or I will be sleeping in here with you." I stated, "At least till someone comes to get you." Koga looked around the now crammed shack, and laid on one of the beds; and mumbled, if someone came, I asked him why he would say that.

"We're not to return unless we have the prince." He said looking away.

{Waste of time, there's no princes here.} Scorch laughed.

Over the next few weeks Scorch and I became better acquainted with Koda, he insisted on doing some work around the mansion, or to train with Scorch and I. We had him do the training Sensei made us do in the beginning of our stay here; from hauling water to repairing walls, if we didn't have to, and he did most without a complaint. Scorch and I had become masters of fire in the short time we had been here. Sensei told us there were higher steps to learn, but only if we could raise the lava single handedly, something he had never taught anyone. During one of my stays in the shed I began to think about all I had done while in this new world. From scaring wolf mothers, provin cave, and now this recent fight I felt like I had done it all. I remembered my battle with Fury, the cougar, and thought; _what would I rank now that I'm this powerful_. Remembering my Elemental score I began to wonder, what if fire wasn't my only element. If I could do fire, why not bend water to my will also?

When the day was finished I went to the water tower and poured some water into a cup. I ran my energy through it and tried to make it ripple. I attempted to move the water most of the night, it was easily harder to do then manipulating heat. When I could barely keep my eyes open i shifted the cup and made waves then drank the water _AH HA i did it_ i smirked, and would try again tomorrow.

The next morning there was a feeling of giddiness in the air, I felt stronger and, well, giddy; I almost felt sick I was so happy. I dragged the water barrels to the lake, and even the fish were giddy, they were leaping into the air with big idiotic smiles, and fish can't smile. I poured the water into the tower and went inside, Koda was already cleaning. Scorch and Sensei were sitting at the table eating breakfast. The feeling was stronger in the room, and everyone was smiling like big clowns, even Sensei; but at least he was attempting to look serious. Scorch finished first, leaving it in the sink he walked out. I watched him leave and noticed that Scorch's thigh was slightly glowing. When Scorch left the building everyone went back to there normal looks. When I was finished with my plate, Koda took it and washed it, then went out. When he left I asked Sensei what the glow was on Scorch's leg. He looked at me strangely and asked what I had seen, I told him. "I saw a glowing spot on Scorch's leg." He stood up and went to the window.

"So it's showing," he whispered, "When a drake of royal blood matures, his body gives off hormones that increase the strength of those around him; and also give a strange feeling of giddiness' in the air. This hormone was planted in there DNA a long time ago for war reasons." I thought about how our fight with the raven, if Scorch had started giving out that hormone it would have ended the fight, but with a much easier outcome. The Glow on his leg wouldn't stop unless Scorch was under great stress or extremely tiered. Koga took care of most of the chores, allowing Scorch and I to train physically and mentally.

When I could get away I would go to the lake and force energy into the water and throw it around like a ball. I learned on my own different tricks and several ways to turn water into a lethal weapon. A week or so later I was as strong in water element as I was in fire when I started Sensei's training. After a few more days, Sensei approached Scorch and I, he told us to come and raise the lava on our own. Scorch, Sensei, Koga, and I made our may up the mountain. I was allowed first attempt to raise the lava; I reached down with my mind it was much deeper then i remembered, grabbed a hunk of it, and forced it out of the ground. With a sort of clap from Sensei Scorch approached the hole, with great effort he hauled the lava seamlessly out of the air, the effort however caused his leg to start glowing. As Scorch held the lava in the air, there was a long silhouette in the lava. Sensei was shouting at Scorch to throw the lava back, but to late, the shape moved and dove into the earth and reappeared by the lave Tube. Towering over us was a giant worm, Koga turned to run but was paralyzed by Sensei. "Don't move," he glared, releasing the paralysis, "he senses movement." Looking back at the worm he said. "If both the worm's eyes open we'll have to run anyway, but better stay put, he might go back to sleep." About that time one of the eyes opened, he looked around and turned sharply toward Koga, and let out a horrifying cry. Koga almost bolted, but was stopped by Sensei; who had taken a step in sync with Koga, confusing the monster. I quickly asked if it had any weakness, "Water is the only way we know how to repel it, but were short on water nation." _great, of coarse the minute I get something useful I have to use it right away._ I thought, about the same time the second eye opened, it roared again spotting the four of us, licking its lips it dove into the ground. "Run!" Sensei called. We spun around to see a wall of fire headed toward us, we jumped out of the way I made several doppelgangers to gather water, most of which were taken out by the worm, one returned with a bucket, barely enough. While the other three ran toward the house, I stopped to face the beast. I heard it come out of the ground, launching Koga straight into the air, waiting patiently the worm opened his mouth and waited. I launched a barrage of water against the beast; it looked at me with surprised. Gathering the water I pounded the beast with whips of water,screaming it dived back into the lava chute, leaving behind a large scale. Sensei was very impressed that I taught myself a water technique, and Scorch was acting jealous. Scorch picked up Koga on his back and carried him homeward; he woke about halfway back and walked the rest of the way. When we reached the house was dark, and everyone was ready to sleep, Scorch took up residence in the shack, while I slept in the house. I slept sounder than I had ever before.

A few days later a were-wolf stood at the front door, demanding several things I never heard. Sensei let him in; on his shoulder was an adolescent falcon. Scorch and I were told to wait outside for several minutes, and then Scorch was asked to come in, while Sensei and I had to wait. He did his best to explain what was happening, "The wolf is from the wolf-shuriken gang, he was likely hired to assassinate someone. When you go in DO NOT stare at his tattoo! It is a great disrespect to his gang, his falcon tends to know when you're lying and won't hesitate to tell his master. Scorch came out looking confused, and sent me in.

The wolf greeted me with a half smile and sat me down; he then sat down straight in front of me and stared straight into my eyes. He stared for several minutes then sat up and grinned. "You know something I need to know." His grin disappeared into a snarl, "Where is the prince? The drake was no help at all and the old lion was to stubborn to reveal his identity to me; but a little birdie told my friend here," he patted the falcon on the head, "That there was something going on here at the lions mansion." The falcon rolled his eyes and flew over to the mantel.

"I don't, not know who the prince is." I told the wolf, he turned his head showing his tattoo, which covered the side of his face. I followed his gaze to Koga who had walked in; unaware of what was happening.

"Hello young drake, go wait outside with the other two until your called in," he forced a smile and then followed him to the door; which dissipated the instant he shut the door. He came back over and sat down across from me. "I know when someone is lying, call it a born instinct, and you are lying." He laid his leg across his lap and just sat there, waiting for me to say something, I decided to not keep him waiting.

"If I knew who he was, why should I tell you?" he smiled as if waiting for this question.

"I was paid top dollar to," he paused choosing his words, "deal with him." he grinned. What he said and what his body language was telling me was several different things. When he realized I wasn't going to tell him he got anxious, "Look kid, I'm here to 'assassinate' the prince." My heart stopped, _who would order an assassin?_ I thought; but before I could ask who he calmed down. "But, that was what I was asked to do, not told, and since I don't know who the prince is, I can't kill him."

"Who ordered the assassination?" Sensei asked busting through the door. The falcon dove for the open window evading a fight. the Wolf hissed unnaturally and made dove through the window.


	5. Chapter 5

Two years later

"Into the bush." I ordered, Scorch and I dived down and land softly. "Do a quick scan.

"Nothing only that stupid bird!" he replied. That 'stupid' bird had been following us for several hours.

"Are you're your scanning correctly?" I asked, scanning the area, our target had been eluding us all week.

He glared, "I've been scanning for anything three to seventy-five pounds." He replied annoyed I had asked.

"Try expanding, go up to one-hundred pounds." He focused for a minute, expanding his range. I felt his mind pass over me and ping off something in a bush nearby.

"There!" we leapt into the bush; the deer jumped betraying its location to us. I tackled and held the deer long enough for Scorch to bite and break her neck. Roaring in triumph he cleaned out and bury the innards and I began to cut the doe up and separate the meat.

"She'll provide enough for a week if all goes well." Scorch nodded, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. "Let's go find Sensei." we salted and packed up the meat and began our way to where he said to meet us. After the assassin came after Scorch we were constantly on the move. We had traveled the continent, well the mapped regions that is, and were on our way back to the Fire Nation. We made it to the rendezvous and waited. Sensei arrived a few hours later and asked us about our latest hunting trip, we showd him a full pack of fresh meat. After several hours around the fire and a few pieces of venison we laid down for the night. We began early in the morning as we have done for several months now focusing energy and reviewing our lore books. After traveling around the continent I had been able to witness and learn four of the six elements, lightning and plant were not yet within my reach. Sensei said that I was not likely to learn them because they were opposite of what I had already learned. He said that my body could only take so much working against itself. The opposite of fire was water and the opposite of earth was air. I had already mastered these and they were at war within my body, within me fire and air were fighting for control over water and earth. One of them would eventually win, but probably not until I was either to old to keep using them, or they would settle down, but that would only happen if I used them evenly. So to be sure I didn't over use one, I spent half-an-hour on each everyday.

While I practiced fire, water, and earth. Scorch and Sensei went on ahead and sparred on their way. After an hour-and-a-half I used air element to move the air out from in front of me and increase my speed to catch up to them. We would spend the rest of the day either walking or trying to find something of worth, in a wreckage of a war machines or whatever we found. Sometimes we would find something worth a hot bowl of stew, or a small trinket we could pawn in the next town for a small profit. While we were walking down the unfamiliar path, I saw something shine in the forest. Pointing it out to Sensei and asked if we had time to check it out. "This forest has had some strange things happen in it, people getting lost, or even disappearing, and reappearing either dead or extremely aged."

"Its only a few feet, someone can stay here and make sure we don't lose our way." I argued. Sensei had that, no matter what I say you'll go anyway, look. "We'll be right back." I promised, victorious. Scorch and I headed to the reflection. When we reached it, it was the top half of a skyscraper.

"Bill, what is this?"

"It's the top of a skyscraper?" I showed him a mental picture of one back home. "But what's it doing here?"

"A brilliant question for one so young." a voice called out, time was sitting still, I looked around and saw leaves floating in mid air. Looking over at Scorch he was staring without blinking. "Fear not, he is not harmed, nor will you be." It said. "How do you know of this metallic object?" I was hesitant to answer. "Don't be afraid, no one around will hear you, nor will I keep it in my memory if you so choose.

"I'm not afraid, I'm, hesitant because I do not know weather to trust you. But because you say that you will forget it, I am not of this world, I come from another dimension."

"Well answered, come be my pupil, and I will give you time." I looked at Scorch, and looked around for the voice.

"If I go, so does he." i motioned to Scorch

After a moment the voice spoke again irritated, "Very well." A flash of light surrounded us, Scorch looked around, confused.

"What have you gotten us into?" Scorch moaned. I didn't answer him, I was asking the same question myself. When the light dissipated we were standing by some-sort of house.

"Bill, and Scorch, pure-fire." a ghost-white figure called. "I have been expecting you."

"Stand back." Scorch growled. "Who are you, and how do you know who we are?"

The being laughed, "I know all, because I see all, I can see you, past, present, and your, possible, futures. I see it very short if you threaten me, and short or a long life, if you hear what I have to say."

"I'm listening," Scorch said flexing his talons still not trusting this being.

"I have brought you hear, not for my own amusement, but so that you could save us all." he paused, breathing hard. "I am the last protector of this era. I need to pass on my duty, before I expire. In order to do that, my pupil must be able to control time." he panted hard, trying to catch his breath. "I will train you to be able to withstand the knowledge that time forces itself into you; and make sure you have the physical ability to control, and manipulate, time to your will." he began explaining his past pupils were unable to control the knowledge of time, causing them to age unnaturally. My other students that could handle the brain knowledge but were unable to control time, and died. "Despite past failures, the two of you should be able to handle it together." he finally ended. I looked around this white room like area, there was no sun just an unknown light source that showed no shodows, time seemed to sit still here.

"When will we begin?" i asked our new Sensei smiled strangely.

"Now." he clapped his hands, a flash of knowledge flooded our minds. From the first two beings, to the present, and then millions of possible futures, I felt like my head was going to explode. I felt for Scorch's mind, only to find that the knowledge I had was only half, the other was being forced into his mind. I fell to the ground holding my head and trying to sort through it. When I thought I couldn't possible hold anymore it stopped. We looked up and, the being was smiling speaking words I couldn't hear, when my mind cleared he stood is up looking deep into our eyes for what seemed like a very uncomfortable hour, he finally spoke. "You will be fine, if nothing has happened by now nothing will." Scorch and I sighed with relief, we weren't going to age to death, at least not yet; but we still have to learn to control time. Feeling my energy depleted, I used a leaching ability I learned in the water country, and absorbed energy from everything around me, the birds, the plants, any of the animals that had energy to spare, sharing with Scorch, once we had enough i relaxed. "I see you have learned several elemental skills, that energy leach will serve you very nicely." he walked off and motioned for us to follow, "the next step" he began, "could take you years to learn, unfortunately for you I don't have that kind of time." within seconds he had broke into our minds and deposited instructional memory. With a deep breath he staggered back, Scorch caught and held him. His hood flipped off, he was ancient, his face was wrinkled, and eyes sunk inches into his face, unhuman being, maybe a lizard? "I'll return you to where you were." he panted, "I can't teach you the skills, but what I've given you will lead the way... through... time." peace came over his eyes, and he was gone.

We woke as if out of a dream, when I looked around, we were laying next to the skyscraper. Sensei was still going on about why not to go into the woods. We stood there stunned, wondering if what we just witnessed was real, massive power welled up within us. A flash of light began the first of many instructional memories. {If you're viewing this I have first and foremost failed to find you before my time came. I was a Protector, since you have no idea what that is, I will start at our beginning, from the fall of creation, the evil one has been attempting to break the barrier of time and space. We, the Protectors, were put in charge to put things back in place.} I felt like I was watching videos back home, the things I was watching were TV Shows I watched when I was a kid, everything from Animorphs to Zoids. They were all, different worlds, there were several areas in time when they have crossed paths, mostly when some idiot was playing god, and broke down the wrong walls by accident.

{We have always been able to use those effected to close the, now, gate in the time\space wall; but now there are to few of us to hold the evil back.} He showed his friends, and fellow Protectors, dieing of ages from 3000-5000 years old, none of which were human. {I have found my replacement, you. Someone, some-when, has found the gate and is breaking into the worlds causing unspeakable chaos.} The vision faded as Sensei came and shook us; we had been sitting for hours.

"What happened?" he asked, Scorch and I just looked at each other. We told him that we were under a spell or something that froze us, we couldn't move or anything; and he believed us, his unnatural fear of the woods gave him enough reason to believe. He urged us to leave; he had a very uneasy feeling that disappeared when we were clear of the forest.

A week later we had reached one of our many 'homes', a small village west of the Fire Nation's fort. When we arrived we were greeted as returning warriors, treated with the highest respect. We had won the trust of this village by stopping raids on their village. We stayed at an inn, with the donations from the grateful villagers. When Master left to clear his mind, Scorch and I meditated. We found that focusing on peace, brought our minds to rest; likewise, if we were focused on killing each other, we would find it very hard to focus. {Bill, we need to find the memories that being plugged into us; and either view them, or destroy them.} I was already beginning to search my mind for where he hid the memories; finding them just beneath my sub-conscious, I began to digest them and take them apart, viewing them piece by piece for poisonous memories made to destroy the viewer. Eliminating any threat they might be poisoned, I began to watch the second video.

{Since you found this video, you either have an outstanding mind; and/or you are asleep and your sub-conscious is trying to lose unwanted memory.} After a few congrats later the being began his tutoring. {When opening a portal threw time, it is dire that you make sure you know exactly when you wish to go. If you're mind is unclear of where your destination is you're most likely to open a portal into void, where you'll be ripped to shreds and pieced together, several times before returning where you started.} He ended the first tutorial at that. Leaving me wondering, how do I open a time portal? He hadn't told me anything except what not to do. Hungry for more, I dove into the next lesson, falling deeper and deeper into rules and regulations. At the end of the lesson a large contract, with all the rules he had just gone over listed, a line, followed by fine print, at the bottom, a pin was in front of me, {to learn the ways of a time, sign here.} Being the smart man that I was, I signed it without looking at the fine print. The contract vanished and the last of the memories began, teaching me how the 'protectors' came into being, and how they saved the universe of alternate universes from falling apart. When the earth began, an evil was cast from the heavens and fell to earth, ever since then he has attempted to destroy universe after universe, seeking all to join him in eternal torment. Several times this being has traversed the dimensions, wreaking havoc, and twisting the minds of men so that they would do his will without realizing what they were doing would destroy everything. The damage was repaired shortly there after. The Protectors were not allowed to fix the damage, the work had to be done by the heroes of that universe, ending the chaos with no memory the event happening. The Protectors were enlisted by the God, who cast down the evil one, to stop his destruction, using powers He gave them to enlist those that could stop the destruction. I, and Scorch, was chosen to become the new protectors, our contract was less strict than the protectors of old, in that we can reveal ourselves, and repair damage done by the evil one, or his minions. The end of the contract appeared. If, at any time, you think that the job given to you is too dangerous, or you can no longer fell you are needed, you may withdraw from your position.

The vision ended with that, Sensei came in not a minute later, and crashed on the lounge chair. Scorch woke from the vision soon after Masters entrance and smiled sarcastically. {This will be fun,} he smirked, {I said that three years ago when we began our training, now look at what we've gotten ourselves into.}

{A war of the dimensions.} I thought, {That has been going on since the beginning of time.} I thought amazed. To tired from our walk, we decided not to stay up much longer. Sensei would have a hangover and be up early wondering why he drank so much. To Scorch and my surprise, he was nowhere to be found. We searched for him and found him in the tavern, drinking, from the looks of it, tea. He was talking with another lion, likely asking for news about the Fire Nation. Other lions were the only people we could trust, leaving them to talk, Scorch and I went up to our rooms and focused on finding the memories of how to open the portal of time.

Digging through my old memories I remembered Tom, Ashley, my sister Katie, my Mom. I had been in this world for three years, no four years; they had to be worried about me. I wished I could so badly I could see them, tell them I loved and missed them. I felt a tear roll down my face, I looked up and saw my friends and family, they were all together in my room. It was exactly how I left it, except the roses and pictures on my bed. Tom and Ashley were crying, so was my Mom and Katie. Scorch came and looked over my shoulder into the portal. About that time Mom looked up and saw me, I smiled, trying to ignore the tears rolling down my face. "It's me Mom, its Bill." She looked at me then Scorch. Tom had grabbed a bat, Ashley and Katie were hiding behind him. I peered into there minds to see why they were so afraid. The number of portals had increased, leaving behind animals, humans, and human like cannibals that stole children from houses and left there bones in the yard. Dragons setting flame to houses, burning entire cities to the ground. My mother, while working in the Capital building had pleaded for the governor, to not attack them. The dragons were only retaliating, they left behind ashes and melted metals not leaving a house standing, save ours, for it housed many eggs. I walked up to the portal, and tried to walk through, a barrier stood between me and my home, I beat on the barrier, in return Tom swung the bat, passing through, it caught me under the chin. I read his lips, it was a warning to not try and come through. I asked Scorch to get me something to write with. When I turned around the portal was no longer viewing my home, but another universe, the dinosaur one, I gathered information from the dinosaurs as they passed by. The stories I received were ones of death and destruction, the whole world had fallen into chaos. The portal moved again, this time the underwater kingdom, merpeople swam by so fast I could barely tell one from the next. Then the reason they were running ancient reptiles, dinosaurs, were swimming by engulfing mouthfuls of mermaids and mermen, leaving behind bloody water and gore. The mermaid I had seen three years ago, holding the now grown fish, swam toward a cave, followed by one of these massive beasts. Enraged I called upon the power and lashed out, "Asoroth!" the beam struck through the barrier, making an arch through the water it stabbed through the giant's head, blood and brain tissue flowed from the hole, attracting the other giants to the new feast. The mermaid looked out safely in the cave, in disgusted at the feeding frenzy. Looking at me and mouthed, _I know you; _I nodded in response. The portal closed, as my energy began to wear out. The portal had been sucking energy from me; as soon as it shut a new vision began. "It has begun the decay of the border between the worlds. You are now the only thing that's keeping to worlds apart, you must go and send those who have fallen through back into there own world, or erase them from time. You have the power, you forced the portal open. Now you must eat, rest and be ready to open, fully and pass through it. Your rage caused the energy beam to pass through the barrier. Now use your emotions, rage, love, the urge to protect, to allow you to pass through the barriers. Eventually you will not need your emotions to pass, but never lose them for they are one of your strongest allies. Scorch and I ate, and rested our bodies, preparing myself to be ready to pass through the barrier. Sensei demanded to know why we were preparing to leave, we had to tell him.

"Sensei," Scorch began, "this is hard to explain. Bill and I must leave to defend." He paused.

"Defend what?" Sensei demanded.

"The universe, not just ours, but other universes as well." I cut in, "The disappearances in the woods we were in, was an ancient protector of this world attempting to find an apprentice." Sensei looked down, disappointed.

"Is this the best story you could come up with?"

"It's not a story sensei." Scorch said. "I have just seen Bills mother, he's not from this world sensei, he's not even from our universe. Scan our memories and see that's what we say is true."

"Bill, is what Scorch say true?" I nodded; he got up and headed to the door. "Then, I don't know what to say but; you can no longer be my apprentices." He said leaving.

"Sensei wait." I tried but Scorch stopped me.

"This was his way of saying good bye, since you're from another world, we should never have been his pupils. This was his way of leaving you with your honor intact, with out shaming you in front of the Council and having you banned from ever seeing me or anyone again. Not that he would now that the council attacked beleives we harbor the prince, honestly, i didn't tell you but i was legally supposed to kill other worlder's on site." He explained. I sat down, trying to understand what they had done for me. If I had entered his school and told him I was not from this world he would have dragged me in front of the council and, if by some strange chance they didn't kill me, they would have destroyed my bond with Scorch and we would never see each other again. I focused on my family and focusing on absorbing Scorch into my body I opened the portal and walked through. Using my emotions of confusion and joy that I was about to see my family safe and sound, I pushed through the portal, breaking through was like trying to walk through a wall of plastic wrap, it gives and gives but doesn't break. Pushing through I stumbled, tripping on asort of threshold, I was home.


	6. Chapter 6

Part VI

"Mom, Katie? Tom, Ashley where are you? I'm home." I called trying to locate them I focused my brain-radar. They were five signatures outside, four of them I recognized, but the fifth was alien to me. I turned around to open my door when Scorch seized control.

{Bill, what are you doing, this is a war zone, and we don't know what that other person is, much less if it's human.} Remembering the memories of my mother i had scanned, a mother dragon would come and take any drakes that had hatched away so they wouldn't become attached. I looked around my house careful not to make a sound so the dragon outside wouldn't detect me; there were eggs everywhere, except my room which was spotless. Feeling into the eggs with my brain I examined the growth abilities of their brains. If they grow up, they would have the brain capacity be smarter than Einstein, but then don't we all. I felt a presence behind me, an egg was hatching. The drake broke through the egg and began to cry. A roar shook the house; the mother dragon began to roar as if speaking to my friends. My friends began speaking the same language, with a mixture of English, and tried to reason with her, she decided that an example had to be made, before she could strike I grabbed the drake formed a blade of fire, I broke through the wall. The baby screamed in terror as I flew through the air, landing not a few feet from the mother. She had just begun to close her jaws around Tom's waist when I held the blade to the babies' neck. Reaching out with my mind I wrapped around the babies' mind and learned what I could of its language, finding nothing useful I resorted to pictures. Pushing my way into the dragons mind I showed it images, explaining that if she bit my friend in two I would kill the drake, if she let him go, I would hand the baby over unharmed. When she growled I held the blade closer to the babies' neck. The mother grinned opened her jaws and pulled back her massive head. Then I was able to see her at full height, stretching from head to tail she was larger than any being I had seen while in Scorch's world, well over 50 feet from shoulder down, she must've been anywhere from 70-90 feet with neck extended. When she lowered her head and looked me in the eye, I asked if I may touch her head, she gave permission, I lowered the drake into her mouth and touched her snout, and her scales were soft as silk, but hard as a diamond, if not harder. She clicked her jaws and I withdrew my hand. Taking several flaps of her wings, she jumped and flew high into the air disappearing into the smoke which covered the sky, dimming the sun and bringing with it a shower of ashes. Tom stood perfectly still, as did the rest of them until they heard my voice.

"Bill?" my mother asked looking at me strangely.

"Yes mom, it's me, Bill." She looked at me in disbelief staring at my robe, my face and my dagger. My features had become more dragon-like since I disappeared. My ears were pointier and were more sensitive, my teeth were almost all pointed like daggers, and my face had become slightly elongated, like a snout. I looked down into shiny pool of liquid and saw my eyes, and they scared me, a hunger for blood and meat were imprinted in them, looking into them I lost my focus. Scorch desided it was time to emerge so he could introduce himself. Tom and Ashley watched shocked while my mom forced Katie to look away.

"Bill, if that's who you are, what is that!" Tom pointed at Scorch's half emerged body, I shrugged.

"Nothing to worry about Tom, just like your cobra, this is my friend and partner, Scorch." I introduced as he finished emerging. Ashley pulled a concealed dagger from here shirt and Tom reached for an iron pipe, but Scorch lied down showing he met no harm.

"So you are Tom, Bill has told me much about you and the pranks you've pulled, I must get your side of the story." He fixed his gaze on Ashley. "And you must be the fabulous Ash…" I jumped and clamped his mouth shut.

{Don't say it.} I warned him. Scorch just smiled, and nodded giving in.

"Ashley, he has told me much about you as well." Turning his head he looked at my Mother and Katie. "Bills mother I presume, and his sister, Katie. It is a pleasure to finally meet you." He inclined his head, to show honor and respect to them.

"Don't think we haven't been fooled before reptile. If you and 'Bill' are who you claim you are, then you have nothing to worry about." Tom let the threat hang coming closer and away from the ladies he said, "Don't think I won't hesitate to kill both of you if you pose a threat to our family. This," he pulled out a folded skin "is the skin of three dragons I have slain"; he began to unfold them, holding a red, black, and blue skin. Scorch didn't take the threat lying down, standing to his full height; he glared at the red skin. "O was this one a friend?" I recognized a scar on one of the leg flaps.

Calming Scorch I asked. "Did you put that scar on the leg or was it already there?"

"It was already there, I wouldn't have been able to lay the killing blow if I had put that scar there." Scorch began to become furious. Attempting to calm him I placed a hand on his neck and messaged it. He shook off my hand and flew into the house.

"This may have been his brother." I said solemnly. "He may've fallen into this world by mistake." A horror came over Tom, a shadow, black as night fell over me. I turned to see what was causing the shade and was pinned beneath a huge claw. {Scorch, there's a dragon out here, and I may need your help.} The dragon looked over his shoulder to another dragon I recognized as the mother. He growled at me, and then looked at me expectantly. "I need a translator. I don't know what he said." Tom looked at me and looked at the dragon, growling something. The dragon burped a flame at Tom.

"He asked if you were the one who threatened one of his babies today." I nodded. The dragon grinned and lowered his snout opening it he breathed a jet of black flame, attempting to incinerate me. Remembering my training to deflect fire, I started to suck moisture out of the air with one hand and used the other to force the heat of the flame back toward the dragon. When the dragon saw he wasn't getting anywhere he stopped shooting and went to bite me. Taking the accumulated water I punched the dragon sending the water down his belly, cutting his belly from the chest all the way down to his crotch. The dragon jumped up and battered me with the wind from his wings and flew off, followed by his mate. I broke there mind and copied a huge chunk of their memories and put them aside so I could learn their language later.

Breathing heavily I took the water and washed myself off, purifying it I found a barrel, sanitized and cleaned it, and put the water into it. Tom, Ashley and my mother were staring at the trail of blood that led down the road. Tom was the first to speak, "No one has ever harmed the Dragon King, or much less made him bleed. If you are Bill, then where ever you went, you must've been trained, genetically enhanced, or something." He paused and pointed at the barrel. "You were able to accumulate water from thin air; our scientists have been trying to do that for months and they're about to run out of ideas. Whatever you did, you must show it to them so they can copy and send the water around the world."

"It's not something I can teach just anybody; you have a better chance of teaching a shark to walk." I explained. "I've been training my body for three years…" at the sound of three years they looked at me strangely.

"Bill, I'm now nineteen years old." I looked at him like, so? "I was twelve when you left. You've been gone seven years." The news hit me like a freight train; I had traveled forward in time.

"Do you remember hitting someone in a door way with a bat?" I asked.

"Yeah, I hit a guy who was trying to attack us in the chin four years ago, when the dragons were still on the attack. I bruised him good and the dragon behind him…" he trailed off. I looked up to show the bruise that had been left when he hit me with the bat.

"Tom, that was yesterday for me. That means…" I paused thinking "Katie, that makes you thirteen passed away of an incurable illness. His last wish, was for me to take his two canines, the teeth right here," I pointed to my canines, "I made two necklaces from them, Scorch, my partner is wearing one, and this one happy very late birthdays." I offered her the necklace, she grabbed it and looked it over; and she put it over her head, trying it on. It was a bit loose. "Let me fix that." I grabbed the tooth and pulled the string a little, and it shrunk. "The string grows as the years pass, if it grows to fast hold the tooth where you want it to hand and pull the string lightly and it will shrink to just the right size. This tooth always reminded me of the courage that cub had to face death and not show his fear a single bit, and that gave me courage. I hope it gives you the same."

I walked toward Ashley and my Mom. "Mom I'm sorry. I'm sorry I disappeared seven years ago" I started to tear up. She reached for me and like only a mother can dried my eyes with three words, I love you. "But don't think I didn't forget about you while I was away. I received this from a mother dragon. I had rescued her children from a crocodile who had taken them during a famine." I held up an emerald pendent. "They give these away like crazy there." I placed it around her neck. "i hope this bring you all the luck and fortuned it blessed me with."

"Ashley, I…" I began to say but was stunned when she embraced me in a hug. She held me for a moment then broke away suddenly, "Ashley, all those years ago, on the day I disappeared I felt as if I would never see you again. During my training I stumbled across this." Reaching into another pocket I pulled out a warm stone. "This stone isn't all that it seems. In five years, that rock will crack and give birth to a gem, the likes no one on this planet except Scorch and I have seen. It will glow with the intensity of a thousand suns, and be smooth as a babies' bottom. Until it hatches, this stone will stay at around seventy degrees during the day, but heat up to 90 at night, making it a great hand warmer in the cold winter nights, and as refreshing as an ice cube, during the hot summer days, minus the water." She accepted it.

"Tom, what I give you, I hold dear and have only given it to one only person. I give you my mind." I touched him his forehead with my finger and established a link from his mind to mine. {Tom, what I give you may not seem like much, but it is something you can use like a phone. If you ever need help, call out to us with your mind, I'll teach you how and either Scorch or I will come running.}

"Thank you Bill, I don't know what to say." Tom fumbled with the words.

"Say you will accept the mind link and it will become as permanent as our friend ship."

"I accept it." I pushed opened his mind and locked the link in place, some of my memories of Scorch's world leaked over.

{What you're feeling now if normal, any information you need ask of me. I don't know how willing to help you Scorch will be. Right now he's not feeling like talking to anyone; but I'm going to go try and help him feel better.}

"Bill, the dragon that met you at Scorch's house, that's not the one who has this scar, it's a different one."

"Are you positive?"

"Double positive." He nodded, I headed off to tell Scorch when his brain just vanished.

{Scorch where are you?} He was unconscious, I headed to where I last heard from him, there were signs of a fight, between atleast three men and Scorch, one man was bit in the hind calf, as part of it was covered in saliva but didn't lose enough blood, Scorch was stabbed in the shoulder, a chip off one of his scales was here, and then hit from behind by a club, the club was left behind, and dragged off west. {Tom, think your answers and I'll hear them, what settlements are there due west of our house?} _The cannibals live out that way_. {Why would they take Scorch?} _Even these cannibals can't eat just there own they need different meats._ {I have to go rescue Scorch.} _You'll have to go through the dragons to get there_. {Then so does Scorch.} I started to run following the drag marks left by Scorch's body. If these cannibals wanted to eat they were going to have to fight for it, again. I ran as fast as I could, these cannibals were either extremely strong, or they were setting a trap, Scorch's body scrape disappeared. I saw a dragon flying the same direction I was headed. Ran and caught up to him, It was Scorch. Scorch was flying directly behind two yellow tinted humans, one of them held there hand strangely on Scorch's back. I did a quick brain scan and saw only three other than me, Scorch and the other two. I came up silently behind the one touching Scorch and saw that he had a needle sticking out of his finger and it was depositing a liquid into Scorch's body. Deciding that wasn't a good thing I reached for the power and kicked the cannibal in the back breaking it in two the other was fast, to fast for me to respond and plowed me to the ground.

"Ah human, what are you tired of working for these dragons so you've come to turn your self in?" he said in an almost hypnotic voice.

"No, you and your friend made the mistake of capturing him, and so I came to kill the one that stabbed him in the shoulder. Your friend was obviously the one who did that, so you must've been the one who knocked him in the head with club." The cannibal grinned

"You're quiet the detective. Tell me did you expect him?" I did a quick brain scan and took a side step dodging a needle packed with the toxin and threw him into the other one and forced him to stick him. I turned away in disgust as The cannibal then began tothe one, hissing disappointed, he dragged the cannibals away, looking over his shoulder to make sure I didn't follow. I took Scorch by the front-arm and picked him up over my shoulder and started dragging his ten foot ass back home. Exhausted from running the distance I laid Scorch down and leaned against him trying to rest some. A shadow passed over head and a young dragon landed next to us, translating as he spoke he said

"What are you doing with one of my brothers?"

I growled back "He is not one of your sisters."

The dragon laughed, and spoke in English. "Your Dracon is very rusty." I laughed back

"I hoped at least one of you spoke English." I sat back down and sighed.

"Don't think I am your friend human, I only speak English because one of your kind trapped me and put me in a cage." He growled.

"I'm sorry to hear that cause I need as many friends and allies as I can get if I'm going to return you all to your own worlds." The drake looked at me mockingly.

"And how are you going to go about doing that? No one can open the portals but the gods."

I nodded, "maybe your 'gods' are the only ones you know of, but there used to be a small army of dragons and other beings that protected and tried to keep the portals from opening, I am the pupil of the last one, well he and I are." I pointed to Scorch. "But the ones that protected the portals were not gods, they were appointed by the one true God, to thwart the Evil Ones plans to destroy the walls/open portals, and cause all of the one God's creation to destroy itself." He stared at me, engulfed in anger.

"This is blasphemy." He roared.

"If one of your 'gods' believes so, let him do something about it." The drake glared and began to pray that one of his gods would answer this challenge. No answer came; the drake turned around and stormed off in defeat.

{Bill, that's not the best way to make friends.} Scorch thought weakly. {I would have tried a more subtle approach. He relaxed, my thoughts passed through his head. "You what, you gave Tom a mind link, do you realize the secrets that we hold, he can now easily get his hands on them." Staring into the smoke covered sky I looked for the words to say, what I saw instead were two beings falling from the sky. I stood watching, mouth ajar; Scorch followed my gaze up and watched as the two fell toward us. One of them was taller, or closer, than the other, was fumbling with a devise and the other was about the size of a large dog. The larger one did something to the devise, a glow engulfed the small one and he started growing, he quickly doubled, tripled, soon he was more than five times his original size. He had changed into a shape I know only belongs to one thing, a digimon. The digimon resembled a knight clad in red and white armor, the other being had disappeared, merged into the digimon probably. When they reached about 100 feet a portal engulfed them, sending them back hopefully to there own world. I expanded the range of my mind radar and swept the area within a fifty mile radius. I attempted to find out just how many different worlds were represented on this earth. Just within a fifty mile radius there were seventy-five different unknowns. I had to return seventy five worlds to order before I could leave my city, and move on to the rest of the world.

My vision faded as another vision came forth, {Bill, you have the ability to do the job I've given you. You are confused and don't know how to return these beings back to there own worlds. If you have seen there world, in a vision or otherwise, picture it and command the portal to open. Doing so will open the portal to the beings world and return them to it. If your concentration shifts while opening the portal, even once, it could open to a different world and you will have to close the portal and try again.} I nodded accordingly, the vision faded, I stood and told Scorch how to send the others back to their own worlds.

"We should start as soon as possible, so we can move on to the next world." He said.

I laughed, "Scorch there are seventy-five different worlds represented, it will take us, weeks, if not months, just to send one of them back. Sure we'll become better at maintaining the portals, and hold them open longer, but it will take years before we are that strong."

"Bill, there is nothing we can't do together. If we stand, merged together we will train twice as fast, learn twice as fast, and be able to do the job twice as fast. We will learn together, train together, hold the gates open together as we always have trained. Apart we couldn't hold one open long enough to get one family through, but together we could do a world at a time and still have energy to spare." I smiled, he always seems to be right. "But, if we should have to work separate, I brought these." He held out a bag of crystals, I remembered the wolf leader who used it to try and kill Timber that first year I was away.

"Scorch, those are too dangerous, you know that. If Sensei were…"

"He's not here, we are on our own."

"What I those cannibals come while we are weak, hmmm. Who would protect us while they picked there teeth with our bones?" Scorch put the bag of crystals back into his pocket.

"There only for emergencies." He explained. "If that were the case, we can always teleport out of danger. If that were the case." I looked him wondering why he always won are arguments, maybe because he was almost always right. I smiled as the yellow sun peaked over the horizon; _atleast_ _the smoke doesn't cover the entire world which will hopefully mean the dragons don't either,_ I thought hopefully. Scorch and I walked home ready for the day to end and the next day to begin.

* * *

Kinda corney ending but w/e review's welcome


	7. Chapter 7

We woke to the howl of a far off dragon, mourning the loss of a drake. Getting dressed I saw Katie walking out to the water barrel, a saber tooth hid behind a wall waiting for her to pass. I reached out with my mind and found the sabers memories of his home. I waited for Katie to pass so the saber tooth would jump saving me the trouble of forcing it into a portal. Katie passed and the saber leapt, I opened the portal and sent the saber back to its own world and Katie was never the wiser. Energy drained out of me, like water from a busted pipe. "That wasn't very nice" Scorch said startling me. "Using your sister as bait, you should be ashamed."

I turned around, "Scorch you have no room to talk, how was that different from when we were hunting that wild wolf?" His faced turned red, well redder, and he stormed out of the room. A village had requested we hunt down a rouge wolf that had been sneaking in and stealing young from their beds. One of the younglings followed Scorch and I into the woods, Scorch and I separated; Scorch found the youngling and made it wait in a snare. When the wolf pounced, his front legs were caught in the snare and the youngling went free, not knowing it was ever in danger. Sensei chastised Scorch and swore that if he ever did something like that again, he would beat Scorch within an inch of his life. Sensei wasn't here; but I knew that if he were I would be in a corner somewhere getting the hell beat out of me.

{Bill?} Tom was trying to reach me.

{Yes Tom?} I answered.

{We need you over here now, an egg was broken accidentally and the mother isn't happy.} I headed to where Tom and Ashley were taking in eggs to care for, on the way I studied the dragons language, making sure I wouldn't say something foolish and make the dragon even angrier. Scorch had flown ahead of me and was already talking with the dragon when I arrived, asking for the mother to calm down.

"It was an accident your majesty, forgive them." She lowered her head and stared at Scorch with her giant eye.

"It better not happen again." She said sorrowfully, "We are protecting you humans from those disgusting cannibals; but we will stop if you betray our trust again." She was referring to the war. Scorch bowed humbly and walked backwards, speaking with the power of the dragon lore, Scorch healed the egg and placed the embryo and its protective fluids back inside. Amazed at this feat the dragon queen stared in awe, "If that drake hatches he will be under your care little one." The queen said laying the two remaining eggs on the ground, took of to the west.

"Thank you, Scorch." Ashley said collapsing in a heap on the ground. "If you hadn't shown up when you did…"

"Your welcome," I relayed to her, Scorch wasn't comfortable speaking in English yet so I would pass on what he wanted to say. "How did the egg break?"

"I was turning around to set the egg down when I tripped over something. The egg was caught between me and the ground and smashed into pieces, thanks again Scorch." Scorch nodded and walked over to the egg. He picking it up gently and flew into the ruins of a house he stayed in.

{Not feeling friendly today?} I called.

{I have an egg I'm going to look after, so I thought I'd find a place to keep it warm.} He replyed.

{Ok.} I helped move the eggs into the house. When they were all put up nice and neat, Scorch and I went for a run. The city, my hometown, was trashed. The dragons had burned or melted almost everything to the ground. The only things still standing were some warehouses, a few scorched homes, and the capital building. From which hundreds of drakes poured in and out playing on the steps and pillars. A dragon lay around the dome watching the drakes carefully for any intruders or predators in the mix. Seeing us approach he let out a warning shot. Unfazed we continued our run, going straight passed the capital we made a large circle and began to return, when a cry was let off by the guard. He swept down onto a group of cannibals taking away one of the drakes. Another party was taking advantage of the dragon and stealing away two others behind his back. Scorch and I took this as an opportunity to send something back to its world, the cannibals, I broke into ones mind and searched for memories of there home world. All I saw was darkness, the world was sunless and cold, an evil heat radiated throughout the world keeping it warm. A warehouse was in front of me; the cannibal walked in and sat down to watch what was going on. This was no warehouse it was a slaughterhouse. Pure humans were being bred; when the women gave birth they were discarded or eaten. When the men fell from there hooks, the same, the smell of rotten meat clung to the ground like fog, the gore from there meals was everywhere, the humans hanging from hooks and laid down on top of each other weren't conscious, they were fed by long tubes that was crudely stabbed into there backbone and fused into there blood stream. I couldn't leave this nightmare, I had to find something to use as a landmark to send them back, so this wouldn't happen on our world. I glimpsed an area of the brain that held some religious memory. A pastor was standing on a rock, trying to escape the cannibal's grip. There he held a bible, but it was short a few pages. The memory stopped as Scorch dragged me away from the fight. {NO take me back I'm so close.} Scorch reluctantly stopped and the memory continued.

"This is the curse, giving to the prophet Malachi. 'Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.' You are cursed by the Lord God of the Heavens and Earth, and you will rot on the earth until judgment day." A beam of light engulfed the pastor and he was purified and taken up into the heavens, all that remained were his cloths and shoes. Then a landmark came into sight, Mount Rushmore, but the presidents resembled Nazi generals, I had my landmark, and the memory faded. {Go Scorch, go.}

{No need, the battles won.} He ignited the cannibal that I had linked with and incinerated him. I opened my eyes and saw the drakes had risen up against the cannibals and mauled them to death. The three drakes that were captured were lying still, likely paralyzed by the poison. The other drakes were forming circles around them and watching for other predators. The dragon on guard landed near us.

"Hello there." Scorch called.

"Small one." The dragon said, respectfully. "Thank you, if you hadn't assisted two of our own would be lost today. How can I repay you?"

"Your friendship and alliance is all we need. For when we can send you home, we will need respected dragons to help encourage others to leave." Scorch said with a bow.

"You ask for a lot, I can't grantee that the drakes will wish to leave their birth place, but if you can send us home, we would greatly appreciate the gesture." He said humored. "That is, if." He smiled and with a great leap, jumped back to his post. Scorch and I ran home to tell some of the story our family back home.

Scorch and I continued our run, but with less vigor. "Scorch, we need to either kill all these cannibals, or make an anti-venom for there poison. What I saw in that, that creature's head was horrible, unless I am forced to, or I give an account to a writer, I will never share that memory so long as I live." Scorch nodded thoughtfully.

"Well the easiest thing to do would be eradicate them all, but I don't think the protectors would have done that." He said with a smirk. "So that leaves us one other choice, we make an anti-venom." I smiled agreeing, though I was not quite sure how to obtain the venom to make the antidote, Scorch and I still had to try. "Bill, while you were in those memories did you find a land mark?" I nodded.

"The land-mark never thought I'd say this, is a Mount Rushmore with Nazi generals instead of American presidents." Scorch looked at me confused; I then explained how the Nazis were very ruthless humans who destroyed millions of Jews, had waged war with most of the world, and committed unknown number of war crimes. When we reached our house's we sayd good night. I checke in on the family, every one was safe, the dragon eggs were safely tucked away and being kept warm and all was well that night.

We spotted a dozen or so cannibals heading off west that morning, something seemed to have scared them off by the way they were running. Scorch and I wanted to check out what had scared them so bad. We walked to where the camps were located and found them utterly destroyed. By the looks of it a tornado of fire had passed through, and several houses were still burning. I took a look around found several cannibals, I tried to suck the venom from there sacs but they were empty. They either had been used or evaporated by the fire.

Scorch was more fortunate in his search; he found what looked like tracks of a large, bipedal dragon. After about ten feet they shrank suddenly and became the size of frying pan. There was a drag mark behind them, someone had been hit and was paralyzed by the poison. Scorch and I followed the tracks; they were fairly fresh and were getting deeper and deeper. The dragon was putting a lot of effort into getting away, or was also affected by the poison and was getting tired. We followed them into a cave, a huge bear lived in this cave before I left, he wasn't there now.

"Hello?" I called, "Is anyone there?" I heard a growl, and probed with my mind. I felt the mind of a young boy and an unfamiliar brain. It wouldn't let me in as if there was a firewall protecting its memories. My lore book fell from my pocket, I picked it up and scanned the pages, a new lore had awakened. It said simply this

'_Copy. This lore lets you sponge your opponent's attack, and shoot several attacks back. Only limited amounts of these attacks will be useable and will most always be weaker than the original.'_

{Scorch; has any dragon in your kingdom ever used copy?}

{Yes, but he never explained it to me.} Scorch's memories of his father came alive.

{Oh, alright.} I ended that quickly. "Whoever is in there, were coming in, we mean you and your friend no harm."

"How did you know there were two of us if your not one of the ones who did this to him?" The voice echoed from within the cave. "How can I trust you?"

"I guess you can't, but you'll never will until you let us help." I answered. He whined a little then gave in.

"Alright, but you'd better not try anything or ill do to you what I did to the other ones. Come in with your hands in front of you." I followed his instructions, Scorch tried but was dismissed from the request. I couldn't see anything of the two except a hand just outside the shadows and a silhouette of something standing near it. "Alright," he said "but the warning goes double for your friend." Scorch nodded, not even flinching at the threat. We approached the young man and set down a lantern, Scorch had lit it with a breath. The candle lit up the room revealing our host, a digimon named Guilomon. He was red and raptor shaped he has a tri-force/radiation looking symbol on his snout. "You two think you can help… then help. My partner was stuck by one of those things out there, if you can help him then please. I was stuck also but I was barely effected. I grew a little bit tired but never fell asleep like him." I patted Guilomon on his back and comforted him.

"Your partner will be fine, the poison will pass and he will be his self again in a few hours. Until then come let me in your mind and I will send you and your pal off this rock and back home." Guilomon looked at me skeptical when I said that I could send them home.

"If I let you into my mind, will you return the favor so I can know that you're not lying?" I agreed and brought his consciousness into my own. I read his thoughts and found a place in his home world, and in the boys. I guided Guilomon's thoughts so that he wouldn't be led into areas that held information that could be dangerous. When he believed I was not deceiving him I released him back into his own body. I helped Guilomon up and settled in for the night. I sent a quick message to Tom telling him where we were, it wouldn't reach him instantly, but I knew he would hear it before nightfall. What I didn't know is there were two Toms that would receive the message, and one of them was very unpleasant

Half way through the night my brain radar went off like a bug zapper in a swarm of flies, just one brain after another after another. I could feel literally hundreds of brains swarming outside the cave, searching, smelling and making horrible cries. Guilomon was standing at the entrance ready to fight. His partner was standing beside him holding what I determined to be a digi-vise. "Guilomon, are you ready?" he asked not hiding the fright in his voice, nor the boldness and courage.

"Yes Tai-chi, I am ready." Guilomon said proud to be fighting to the death with his partner.

"Tai-chi is it? My names Bill, I…"

"I don't care who you are, you led them here didn't you? You and your partner betrayed us?"

"If Scorch and I were against you why would I protect us by hiding our scent in this cave? That's the only reason they haven't charged in here tooth and claw, killing us in our sleep."

"Tai, he let me search his mind, he wasn't going to turn us over to them, he promised to send us home." Tai looked at me with wonder.

"Are you positive Guilomon?" Guilomon nodded firmly. "Alright, but what about them, if you send us home how will you get out?"

"Scorch and I can deal with them easily, I'm sure of it."

"Tai if they're going to fight, we should as well." Guilomon looked up at his tamer. Tai pulled a deck of cards and began searching them; he grabbed a card and swiped it over his digi-vise. Guilomon digivolved into a half-dino-half-dragon named Growlmon. He was approx. 10-15 feet tall, barely fitting in the cave, a nine-foot tail, and scythes on his arm. He was red with black strips down his back, and the tri-force/radiation symbol was larger on a white patch on his chest. The cannibals finally detected our sent and moved like roaches onto the cave.

"Growlmon, blast them." Tai ordered. Fire spilt through Growlmon's teeth, opening his mouth, he released several fireballs each one hitting a target.

{Scorch, lets get in on this fight!} I called, but he was already rushing forward. _Good old Scorch_ I thought. {Don't let them stab you're in trouble.} I warned.

{Just hurry up and get in the fight.} He called back. I began focusing on the elements around me: the earth, air, and water begged me to use them against these invaders. Heeding to their plea I called the moisture out of the air and shot frozen daggers at the cannibals. Using earth element I blocked the enemy from hitting my friends. I used air element to push them away if they came to close to Tai chi or me.

"How many are there?" Growlmon complained. "I've killed twenty with my fire blasts alone. I can't recall how many heads I've cut." Scorch was having similar issues, as was I. No matter how many we killed one just forward came and replaced it.

"Scorch, Growlmon fall back to me, Tai chi get behind me. I released several clones to hold off the enemy until Scorch and Growlmon could reach us. {Scorch, we need to finish this quickly, we ether use the Ant-lion technique, or the Ice-fire. Choose quickly while I have the energy to use them.}

Scorch thought quickly and said {we haven't used the Ant-lion technique and we don't know what it does, we have some practice with Ice-fire use it, and it will take less energy}.

Scorch flooded me with his reserve energy and I focused on the words, "Glaciuse-incendia!" I released the lore and forcing the fire out my mouth I opened wide the ice-fire froze the closest enemies the ones outside became trapped in ice, unable to move. The battle had lasted all-day and well into the night. More cannibals were pouring into the cave, followed by a troll like creature wielding a spiked club, he busted through the ice sculptures, impaling cannibals on his club. I reflected the ones he knocked toward us and made sure they were dead.

The troll rushed Growlmon threw him flat against the wall. Scorch fell back to me. Knocking Scorch aside he raised his club to hit Tai chi, Growlmon started to glow, "Evolve!" the digimon yelled. The light faded and Growlmon emerged as War-Growlmon. His body was covered in armor; his left arm was a metallic claw. "Atomic blaster." Two ports in his cheats lit up sending bursts of light into the troll sending him sprawling into the wall. War-Growlmon had evolved into a pure fighting machine. He tore through the cannibals like a hot knife through butter his metallic skin was unbreachable by the cannibal's claw, and had a seemingly unending energy source. The battle lasted throughout the night Scorch and I hardly needed to be involved unless War-Growlmon was just overwhelmed.

By daybreak the cannibals had retreated or were obliterated. We piled the bodies to burn them, while pileing I found Tom. Tom my best friend was lying dead in front of me. I began to wonder, where was the other me, was I stabbed in the back and eaten, or was I doing the eating. If I Tom could be in both worlds then there could also be an opposite world, where I took control of Scorch instead of becoming friends, or I let him be taken by the wolves.


	8. Chapter 8

As promised I sent Guilomon and Tai Chi home. Scorch and I headed home, we wanted to forget the night, I wished drinking were as legal in our world as Scorch's. I hadn't become an addict, but I'd enjoyed that I could forget an entire night by drinking down a majority of a bottle. We reached home without incident, surprisingly, Mom and Ashley were relieved that we had made it home alive. Tom was going on about how our disappearance was an excuse to not go hunting. Scorch and I were too tired to argue or reply to their answers; also we didn't want to have to tell them what we had done. Some of the dragons came during the night to check on "little fire-spitter" as they would call Scorch.

Tom "forced" us to go hunting with him the next morning. He explained how the deer had gone into hiding after the dragons came and would be nearly impossible to find until we went deep into the woods. I listed sparingly to his stories of what happened when the Dragons came. Scorch could likely tell more of it then I could. We reached the hunting ground, immediately I began to scan for deer. Scorch and I easily tracked them down several and lured most of them into open for Tom's homemade bow. Tom commanded Scorch not to eat anything until we returned home. Scorch would just roll his eyes and scooped several birds and ate his fill of "feathers and bones" as he said.

We were approaching our house from the side where the ruins so the drakes wouldn't sound off and we could surprise the girls. When we reached the last fragment of wall when we heard a gun shot. We ducked behind a low wall and peeked over. There were jeeps surrounding the house a man walked out of the front door holding two drakes, they couldn't but just hatched. He took them around the corner made sure the other drakes weren't watching and broke their necks. He threw them into a jeep and headed for the door, he didn't make another step. Tom shot an arrow piercing his body and pinning him against the wall. Scorch and Tom crept to the door while I went to see if the drakes had maybe survived. None did, there were two-dozen others in the jeep, and several dozens in the other jeeps. I followed Scorch and Tom to the door, we went inside and found twenty-five men dressed in turbans and desert-camo. Some spoke English, some Spanish, and the rest I didn't know. They pinned the drakes on one side with cattle prods and had Mom and Ashley on the other. Katie was being held hostage with a knife. A man was sent our way to check on the other guy. The man came and passed right by the three of us, Scorch followed him out. He returned cleaning a claw with his tongue. Tom was amazed that the man didn't see us; Scorch explained our cloaking field that only can be seen through by those we wish, or are within three feet of us. Two more men were sent to check on the man, Scorch also took care of those two.

The leader panicked and thought that the Mother Dragon must be outside and ordered his troops to shoot the drakes and began smashing eggs. Scorch lost it; I could not feel his mind anymore all there that existed was rage. He took off with a roar distracted the dozen men enough for Katie to escape her captive and find shelter. Scorch took them out one by one. Soon only a handful remained. I sunk, and muzzled, Scorch and the remaining rebels in a foot of dirt, I joined Scorch the rebels looked at me shocked. "You are a traitor." the leader spat. "You have betrayed your own kind. And you side with this lizard demon."

"My kind, my kind." A humorless laugh escaped my mouth. "My kind, you say. My kind is no longer your kind. Scorch, or the 'lizard demon' as you call him, is closer to being my kind then you will ever be. His consciousness, his feelings for the drakes you just slaughtered. You egg breaking sons of …" I looked at Katie. "If you were my kind you would see that these drakes are happy living with us, they are the innocents, and you have become terrorists." The rebels were shocked, never had they actually thought about what they did as I had showed them. I heard the roar of the Mother Dragon, she was furious with the death of so many off spring, the rebels began to plead for their lives at the sound of her voice. The only thing I could think to say was, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, so shall murder's be punished." I threw them out the front door and slammed it behind them.

Months of foiling these rebels' strikes on Drake nurseries made me a very angry. We spent all our energy deflecting missiles and bullets away from the nests, so we couldn't send anyone home. The attacks lessened, until they stopped completely, the rebellion decided to move on or had dispersed, more likely the first. Finally Scorch and I were able to fulfill a promise and began sending Dragons home. By the end of the second month, all the drakes had evacuated the capital, the countryside was empty of dragons to the point deer and other animals had begun to creep out of hiding. The mother dragon however forbade Scorch's drake to come back to its home world saying it would be best if it stayed with the one to whom he owed his life or something. Te house for once was quiet and peaceful for all save the one drake crying for food or attention. The last remaining adult dragon demanded to stay until he took us to the closest dragon city.

We were prepared to leave the next week, we had decided to wait at least that long to recover our strength. Also we had to make sure the Drake, who we now called Sky, could ride along with us or on Scorch without risk of falling off. Tom, mom, Ashley, and Katie would stay behind and help the neighbors rebuild, they also needed to begin the farming process. I climbed onto the massive dragon, carrying Sky with me; I settled in-between the three-foot spikes that lined his back. I placed Sky's nest in my lap and set him in my lap. The Dragon took off with a leap, spreading his massive wings he flew through the air like a flying fortress; he glided through the air with an occasional flap the power behind his wings caused even the thickest trees to bend and moan. The next city wasn't far it took just barely an hour to reach. During which time he told us about the dragons in the area, how to greet them, and how to bow properly. This was difficult for him to show while he was flying.

We saw the city in the distance and to our surprise there wasn't a pillar smoke and ash. The Dragon explained that this city was the only one to support the dragons by offering the adolescent drakes a place to stay. Also only the wealthy dragons lived here, where they could live in some way like they did at home. A sentinel dragon fired a warning shot that barley grazed the tips of his wing. Scorch flew above the massive drake so that he would not be fired upon when we landed. Our guide told the sentinel why we were here and what we could do. The sentinel wanted proof we could send him home. Our guide saw this as his time to leave. Opening his thoughts he sent me images of his home. Focusing on a large portal I opened it just long enough for the dragon to step through, and to let the sentinel see that I didn't trick his fellow dragon. After seeing his home world he was convinced that we could do as we claimed and escorted us into the city. Three other sentinels stopped us but let us pass. We reached the outskirts of the city; it smelled of rot and decay. The houses in this area were whole and were filled with dragon eggs and their keepers to the point that when one hatched it was almost impossible to find the drake before he broke an egg by accident.

Once in the city Scorch and I were sent to the governor of the city who told us where to go and where to live. He also quietly commented on our politeness, he was shocked that we knew at least this much of there customs. The massive dragon had a dwarf dragon walk us to our apartment in which we would stay. On the way we saw many adolescent dragons hanging out with equal aged humans, and they were getting along. Sky was restless from the trip and didn't wish to sit still. When we reached the room I let him down. The apartment door had been refitted so drakes could walk through a little easier, and a wall had been removed making two apartments into a large one. One of our neighbors, Amber I believe, came over to greet us. She was a tall brown hair woman with a bright smile and a warm heart, her roommate, Sky, was a female dragon Scorch's size. "Hello, welcome to drake utopia." She says smiling, "We're in what used to be Orlando."

"Hello I'm Bill. This is my partner and best friend, Scorch."

"Amber and this is my friend, Sky."

"Pleasure to meat you." Sky whispers over Ambers shoulder. "Now come on we have places to go and people to visit."

"Alright I was only welcoming Bill and Scorch into the neighborhood. I'll talk to you some other time when does Scorch release you?" I looked at her strange, "Doesn't he release you to go hangout with your friends?" Scorch started laughing, which made Sky look at him in distaste.

"Do you not control this human?" Sky asked.

"Me, control Bill." Scorch busted out; he understood what she meant leaving me in the dark. "Bill they think you and I are slave and master." I rolled my eyes seeing some humor in the situation. Scorch finally stopped laughing and explained. "I'm not the same type of dragon as you, I'm not even close. I came from a different dimension than you Sky. Bill and I are much more than we appear." Sky rolled her eyes in disbelief and walked off, with Amber following closely.

"The dragons and humans may live peacefully here, but I see why the rebels fought so hard, they fought for freedom, well sort of." I walked into our apartment and setup Sky's nest. Several other neighbors came and welcomed us in, mostly boys, in there late teens, early twenties. Scorch called me from a different room and proclaimed very dramatically that I was "free to go." I laughed at his performance and bowed saying, "Thank you, Master Scorch." He smiled liking that I called him 'master'. "Don't get used to it." I called as I walked out the door to be confronted by two, bodybuilders by the looks of it, drakes.

"So, your one of the new kids on the block." The biggest of the group said. "You'll be paying us for security. Don't want anything bad to happen, do we?" The drake spoke threatening. Although he was very intimidating, his threat bounced right off.

"You're right, we don't want 'bad to happen." I smiled, "That's why you'll leave us alone." The smaller of the drake stepped forward but was stopped dead by the larger.

"Don't bother with him; we need to teach his master that he needs to teach his human some manners." He spat after saying 'human'. I turned around opened the door and let the two drakes in.

"Be my guest." I said and shut the door behind them. When I found my way outside I looked up to see Scorch throwing the two drakes out the window. A car broke ones fall, and he broke the others. I went and explored the area, there were many gangs in this part of town, but I quickly found myself in a much nicer neighborhood. Everywhere I went though I had a feeling I was being constantly monitored.

…

I was on my way home, and stupidly I went down a dark alley and was surrounded by Drakes. I recognized two of them as the two in the apartment building. "Come on guys, do we really want to fight? Scorch kicked your butts once; I don't want to have to do it." The drakes all smiled evilly, I sighed, "Well if it's a fight you want, who's first?" One of the Drakes stepped forward, and lunged trying to bite my neck, and take me down. While he was in mid strike I grabbed his jaws, clamped them shut and threw him against a pile of trash. A pair of drakes began to assault me then the rest joined in. The only thing I was doing was blocking their attacks, there were so many, and I didn't want to kill any of them. One landed a hit with his tail, knocking me to the ground; I moved the ground beneath me and tunneled out from the circle. Popping up behind them, like a wack-a-mole, I bent the wind to my will and sent a strong gale under the wings of the drakes, sending them flying into the air; again not the brightest of my ideas. From the air they began firing upon me, I ran, deflecting, what I could, back toward them or out somewhere the fire could go out, without catching something on fire. I shoved the gang back with a gust of air, and threw the air out from in front of me so to run my fastest. I moved the heavier air, including the oxygen out of my way, clearing a friction free path in front. I held my breath as long as possible, stopped and looked behind, to my amazement the drakes were keeping up with me. I stopped and turned to face my opponents. I had led them out of town so as no one would get hurt if I didn't out run them. The drakes were tired and out of breath, as was I, but I had a much larger energy reserve. I could siphon energy from anything but decided I didn't need to. The larger of the drakes didn't take his eyes off me; he started to speak, stopped to catch his breath, and then began again. "No human can run half as fast as you. You have put up a grand chase; now let's see if what we've hunted was worth the effort." He stepped in front of the group who backed away granting the leader first dibs.

"I warn you, now that I am outside the city I have no need to hold back." The dragon just smirked.

"Nether do I." His mouth filled with fire as a fire ball began to build within his jaws. He fired three bursts that created a wall to my left right and above, I was trapped within a vortex of fire. He lunged at me attempting to decapitate, I dropped under his attack and upper cut him onto his back. He rolled back onto his legs and stood up cracking his jaw back into place.

"Had enough?"

He laughed. "I'm just getting started." He let loose another blast of fire. I grabbed a hold using lore, spun it around sling-shooting it back into its masters face. He screamed in pain as the embers burned at his eyes. Several of his lackeys came to his assistance but were commanded back. The proud full leader would have no help in this fight.

{Scorch,} I called out {I may be in over my head here, start heading this way but stay out of site.} I hoped he would hear me. The dragon had recovered from the fireball, which left a scar in the shape of a fire emblem on his nose. Looking into a near by puddle he checked the damage.

"Seems only fitting, the leader of the raging infernos having this scar." He began his attack again, this time more carefully than before. He would mock-charge then retreat a few steps.

"Leader of the raging infernos huh, you have earned your title."

"Flattery will get you nowhere human." He struck out with his tail, catching me by surprise he knocked my back onto the ground and pinned me beneath his massive foot. "See what happens when you let your guard down."

"Yeah, you get right into position." I didn't think I would have to use lore to beat this dragon but I wasn't about to lose. Increasing my arm strength ten fold I began to lift, slowly I picked up the dragons foot, got under him, and began to lift him into the air. He was so shocked by the prospect that a human was lifting him, he didn't fly; and then threw him into his lackeys. When he got back up I was on top of him knocking the snot out of him. He went to one knee and in a final attempt he slashed out. I went to give a final blow but stopped before I landed the final hit. "I'll spare your life, if you grant me and my partner complete access to your land, with no threat of attack. And I want your word that if we are attacked, even intentional I have every right to wipe you and your gang off the face of this earth." The leader agreed to my conditions. "And one more thing, when it's time to go home, your gang is first in line." When I came out of site of the gang I relaxed letting the energy flow out. A sharp pain grabbed my chest; Scorch practically had to drag me up the stairs of our apartment. And as pain and uncomfortable things tend to do, the minute we were somewhere I could deal with the pain, it went away. I stopped to say hi to Amber and Sky and saw little Sky was at their apartment making a huge fuss, but stopped when I walked in to pick him up. Amber noticed the holes in my robe and offered to path them for me. I graciously declined her offer, for I was wearing nothing underneath. Thanking her for watching Sky I went into our room. I put Sky into his bed, tucked him in, and said good night. Scorch said that I was going to spoil him if I kept treating him like the king. "Well someone has to spoil him, and it sure won't be you." I teased. He rolled his shoulders irritated and went to his bed. He settled down and drifted off to sleep. My bed was set up on the balcony, which was acceptable, despite that it was set up to keep Scorch's business private, because I enjoyed stargazing. The stars were different here at my world, but I could remember the constellations. I fell asleep and dreamt of flying through the stars.

Scorch woke me with a loud roar; I rubbed my eyes and asked, "Was that absolutely necessary?" I walked inside and began fixing eggs. The chicken farms in the area had survived and were producing plenty of eggs. Scorch ate a dozen, while I ate only a few. Scorch and I were supposed to go work out in some mining camp, instead we sent two of the inferno gangs members in our place. Scorch and I needed to make a date with the governor of the town. We walked through the slums of the city into the larger, or richer, district heading straight for the capital. Guardian dragons demanded that we leave. Opening a portal home beneath them we continued on our way. The increasing amount of guards left me tired. When we finally reached the main hall I was to tired to keep going; but I couldn't leave either, we had made it so far and now we were so close to the governor that I could hear him breathing. I popped a siphoned energy just so I could keep going; the entire building seemed to radiate it. We walked through the doors and discovered that the governor was a massive dragon, easily larger than the mother dragon, stuck in the capital by his size. Probably the reason this city didn't fight.

"Who dare barge in here uninvited, and how did you get past my guards?" he demanded angrily.

Speaking words that just came. "One who will and has sent your people home." I felt a presence leave but was extended as far as I could since, its presence vanished as I began to converse with the massive beast. He talked slowly as his breaths came in and out slow. His wings were trapped in the walls; he had flown though the portal and merged with the building, wings outstretched. The portal must've been massive. I thought wondering if we could free him from his prison without detaching his wings. He allowed me to climb on his back and check his wings for damage. The bones were ripped clean from their places from the impact of the instant stop. His body was also merged, with a large portion of the capital. Upon further inspection of his wing, I was able to bring the bones together with some discomfort to the Dragon. I talked to Scorch about demerging him from the building, if it were even possible. We figured the best way was for one of us to merge with the dragon and loan him the strength to break free, destroying the capital; or we could, with a small amount of danger, teleport him out. The primary danger was that Scorch and I would be exerted from the effort; another was that should we fail to teleport his whole body we might only teleport half ripping him from the rest of his body. We talked them both over with the Governor Dragon, as he was called; we also explained that we would also be able to send his race home by use of the portals. Asking him to also wait to tell us which to use until the next day for Scorch and I or give us a place in the castle to sleep. The Dragon was more than eager to retire and dismissed us to go home. Merging with Scorch rest we went home.

Sky woke me up crying for food. I gave her an egg to suck on, her favorite food believe-it-or-not. I woke again to Sky's cry but this time it was a cry of fear. A portal was open and a monstrous beast was caring Sky back into the portal. Scorch was aroused by the noise and threw himself into the portal. I followed shortly after grabbing our lore books, and entered the portal just as it closed. I emerged into the mouth of a cave, before me was a field; above the trees I saw the long necks of dinosaurs. Great, I thought, now i'm chasing dinosaurs. I leapt into a tree to see if I could spy the thing that grabbed Sky, or Scorch, Who I spotted circling an area he spotted something. {Scorch! Do you see Sky?} Sadness drifted over me as Scorch's emotions flowed over like a river I took a look through his eyes and saw her lying on the floor in front of the beast. {Get her she may still be alive Scorch.} He reacted instantly diving straight for her he swooped her out of the monsters clutches. The monstrous beast began to throw rocks to knock Scorch out of the air. I had nearly caught up with the beast when I heard a crash in the trees and a thud of a body hitting the forest floor. Heading for the noise I discovered Scorch he had been hit by a rock and was knocked unconscious, Sky was showing signs of life, but barely. This monster was going to pay for this. No sooner than I hid Scorch and stabilized Sky the monster busted through the tree line. I saw the monster for the first time and won't ever forget it. He had huge forearms with massive hands seemingly to big for his arm. He had short legs but a massive body his head was covered with small horns and he had a stub of a tail. He roared at the site of meat and ran for me. "Asoroth blade." I yelled two blades of light engulfed by hands I leapt onto the creature and began to stab into its ugly head. It swept me off his head with his arm, stunning me. He picked me up and tried to stuff me into his mouth I grabbed a branch a braced his jaws with it. Slicing off his hand with a blade of dirt I broke free of his hands and used the one lightning technique I had learned.


	9. Chapter 9

The Darker Side

Before I begin to tell you about my adventures in the dinosaur's world, I must tell you about where my dark counter part came from...

The name's Bill, I am now serving my dark "master" and am loathing every second of it. I can't wait till I over throw him and become master. But I suppose I should tell you how I began my journey. This all started when I was attacked in my bedroom, no I suppose it was farther back, yeah. I was walking home I had just dropped my girl off at her house and was about to make to turn the corner when I saw Butch and his two lackeys, Who-knows and Who-cares. They decided that today was the day to pick on me; I however, was not in the mood to be bullied. I tried to get around them but they stopped and pushed me back. "Look Butch if you don't get out of my way I swear I will bust your nose into a hundred pieces." He laughed then threw a punch. Time seemingly slowed as I watched the fist slide by my face, I threw back my arm and let it fly. The next thing I knew Butch's buds are dragging him away; Butch had a bloody nose and looked like it should be in a hundred pieces.

I walked home proudly and then reached my dump of a house. I walked in took a swing out of the milk carton then walked up to my room. After about an hour nap I woke up in this like twilight zone place. Thousands of doors floating around looking in I saw some idiot in a Orange and black suit fighting a cool looking kid who had a blue shirt and black shorts on. I closed the door as fire erupted from the cool kid's mouth. Taking a floating step back I opened another door and saw nothing, a dark abyss of nothingness. I closed the door then was zoomed through the zone in front of two doors, I thought I heard something in the back of my head about choosing a door; but I chose to ignore it. In front of me was a door with a three headed dog, and another with a white dragon. I looked from one door to the next and thought white dragon, what pansy would choose that door? I opened the three headed mutt's door and darkness engulfed me.

Next thing I remember I am before an enormous three headed dog who is looking at me as a dog looked at a bone. Their was nothing I wanted more than to smack that look off his face and teach that dog that I was not going to be dog food. "So, you wish to tame Cerberus?" asked a voice from behind me. "I would have let him eat you but I decided to spare your life."

"Thank you." I said turning around slowly. On a throne before me was a dragon engulfed in a black aura. "My names Bill, what do you want with me?"

"Simple, I want you to become my apprentice." I looked at him strangely. "Soon my wolf pack will be bringing in a drake, you are to be his partner and together you two will become an invincible force." I liked what he was saying.

"But why would you want me?"

"Because someone else has the one I wanted, but you." he said standing up, "you are much stronger than he. Already you have defeated a foe where your ultimate enemy had merely fled."

"Who is my ultimate enemy?" I asked?

"A boy called, Bill." a huge door opened behind me and a drake was brought before me. "What is your name drake?"

"I have none." He replied "just like everyone else in your kingdom, I was simply the strongest."

"Bill, name him." I looked at the drake; he cowered when the dragon spoke. "go on, name him" he encouraged.

"I name you," I thought hard on a name, only one came to mind, "Scorch. I name you Scorch." the dragon laughed at the name.

"It will soot you well. The true Brother to the king of the Fire Nation is going to be working for me." The drake looked up shocked at what his master had said. "Now Bill you and Scorch go out and learn everything you can from my trainers. They will train you in our ways, the way of the dagger and claw, the way of the staff and spear, and the way of the wand and spell." He sat back down, the aura around him seeming weakened, and then he retreated into a room behind his throne. Scorch looked at me wickedly anxious to begin training; I walked over to him and led the way to the training field. For three years we trained together we worked together and we bled together until we were all but blood-brothers. Scorch and I were sent out on assassination missions in the five different realms, we weren't allowed to hit anyone of major importance but we did have lots of fun.

Finally Master taught us the way of the portals, how to open portals to other dimensions. I knew the first one I wished to go to, the Star Wars universe and dominate a Rancor to take to different worlds and rampage. And, during one of my trips through the universes I found the Star wars world and dominated the Rancor, he would only do my and Scorch's will. We took him to several worlds. On one particular world the rancor, out of hunger snatched a young dragon out of its nest. When I pulled it back through the portal I tossed it a mile into the Land before Time world as I called it before I could shut the portal though a second dragon came through followed by a human. I left Scorch in charge of the Rancor, and then went to sleep. The following morning I learn that not only was my Rancor lost, it was destroyed by a human with elemental abilities like the ones back home. I walked into the valley they had stayed in and watched them through out the day. He was the ultimate enemy my Master had spoken of. I readied Scorch with his armor and made ready to fight my enemy.


	10. Chapter 10

I was shocked at what this young dino was telling me. Another human, riding a smaller, and dark, dragon had come through a portal and had released that monster into the valley. Scorch even was baffled by the youngster's story. When the brontosaurus had finished we sat there awkwardly quietly. Scorch broke the silence, "Bill, we are to protect all the worlds, we don't even know how many there are. But if we stop that human here…"

"To bad that is not going to happen." A voice similar to mine spoke, cutting off Scorch. We looked up toward the sound of the voice. A human clad in black armor sat on top of a dragon in similar armor. "Scorch and I have been training with our master to defeat you. Why do you think I sent my Rancor to take that weak dragonling of yours?" Scorch snarled menacingly.

{Keep your cool; he'll try to make you angry and separate us.} I said trying to remain calm.

"Bill, is it, prepare to meet your end." He pulled two daggers from a holder on his waste. He and 'Scorch' dove toward us, releasing a fire blast that encompassed the entire field leaving no chance of escape. Faster than I thought possible I sucked the water from the area and created a water wall above us.

{Scorch, remove the youngsters to a safe place!} As I spoke he reacted, picking up the five of the dinos he took them to a 'safer' place. When they were clear I focused the majority of the water into a cone and speared through the middle creating a hole big enough to keep me from harm. As the steam fell I heard the clash of claw on metal as Scorch engaged the dragon above. When the steam cleared I looked but the other human wasn't on his back.

"Looking for me" a whisper in my ear, two daggers pierced my back; he twisted and was blinded by a cloud of smoke. "A clone, come out and fight me!" he roared.

{Scorch, how's your opponent?}

{Stronger than anticipated, they must've trained at a highly accelerated rate.} He called to me.

{That means that their energy reserves aren't as big as ours.} Scorch wasn't so sure. The two dragons didn't stay airborne much longer. Their jaws were locked on each other's throats; by the time they let go they had fallen to far to regain air. They fell on their side behind their partner.

{Bill, the Ant Lion technique.} I nodded. Reaching into my back pocket I turned quickly through the books while Scorch stood ready to block any attacks. The other human was to busy taking off the damaged armor off his dragon and repairing damage. I found the Ant Lion techniques page; I scanned for the words of power and memorized them.

{Scorch, lets do it.} We made a solid mind link with each other. The merging began slowly. My pants started breaking at the seams as my legs started to and become thicker, my fingers became claws as I simultaneously lost my thumbs; my face extended into a more dragon like face, my teeth became fangs. I shed my shoes before my feet started changing into clawed feet. My senses were like they were on steroids I could literally smell the fear and sweat of my opponent. When Scorch's brain registered the scent as my own I froze, this other human was an alternate version of me. I had expected to run into him, if I had to free all the worlds from the portals, but not as an enemy. After the merge was almost complete I concentrated my energy into my fist. "Ant Lion, Pit trap." I punched the ground sending a shock wave knocking 'Bill' and 'Scorch' to the ground. I hovered over the ground as the field turned to sand and formed a pit; drawing everything, trees, rocks, boulders, inside. The two fought against the steadily increasing incline, but their feet had sunken into the sand, making them unable to escape. When the two reached about half way they looked down in terror as the reason it was called the ant lion technique appeared. Two menacing jaws came up through the sand and waited patiently for its meal.

We thought we had won until, out of the woods busted the five dinos, right into the pit trap. 'Bill' saw his chance and seized it. He took control of the brontosaur and forced him to walk toward the mouth. The mouth turned to its new prey that was so eagerly walking toward its doom. The ant lion left its weak spot opened for 'Scorch', he lunged and bit the ant lion's neck and dragged it out of its pit. 'Bill' threw knife into the brain of the ant lion ending the technique. Scorch and I grabbed the five young ones and made for the safe spot. We entered the cave, which the Rex had shown Scorch. Sky greeted us at the mouth of the cave. Scorch and I demerged as we entered the cave. I collapsed against a wall while Scorch stood guard at the mouth of the cave incase of pursuit. "Scorch," I said exhausted. "If we are to face him again, we need more training."

"Yes, but who would train us?" he asked. Since I didn't have an answer he went back to watching for the dark Bill and Scorch. When I was had rested up a bit I walked around the cave exploring its dark places. I found a room, lit up with glow-worms, which gave me an idea for our trainers. I ran back to tell Scorch of my idea and saw that Scorch was against the wall being pinned by a triceratops, the one that wouldn't believe us earlier. Scorch was barely keeping the horns from going into his chest. The young triceratops was trying to get him to stop but he couldn't hear, I saw blood in his eyes. I ran over and grabbed the triceratops by the tail and dug in. The three-horn then turned on me, the young one went in between him and me, and then charged. The older triceratops saw her charging him and slowed down enough for Scorch to stop him. How do you stop a charging dinosaur, put its child in between it and you.

She explained to him that we weren't the ones who released the monster. That there WAS another human causing havoc in the valley, and that it wasn't me. He grunted a half apology for any damage he had done to Scorch and left with his daughter. Several bellows rang out and the young called back and went home until the only on left was the Rex. I remembered the room with the worms and told Scorch my idea. "Why should we have to train with your people?" he didn't answer. "The simple answer is we don't. I have several years' worth of watching the television. Most of my fighting styles are based off shows I watched when I was younger. The time I nearly killed Timber my kicking him into a tree, yeah got that from watching Naruto." I thought about the fighting styles I used. "Actually, most of them I copied from Naruto." Scorch looked at me confused. Before I met you or entered your world I was in a tunnel with thousands upon thousands of doors. The few that I opened were like those of television shows I watched. Even the world we're in now reminds me of a show I watched." Scorch didn't see what I was getting at. "If all those T.V. shows are other worlds, what do think Naruto is?" The lights clicked in side Scorch's head. "A world where we can go train against extremely good fighters, and maybe, since I was able to learn your worlds lore, maybe I can learn some jutsu as well."

Scorch thought for a second. {So, if you saw this world on the television. What is this lizard's name?} He pointed at the Rex. I thought for several minutes trying to remember his name; then I remembered.

{I believe I remember, lets see if I he responds when I say his name.} "Hey, Chomper?" The Rex stood up and looked at me startled.

"I never told you my name how did you know it?" he said stuttering every other word. I re-explained what I had explained to Scorch. He understood, for the most part, what I told him. I placed a protective field over the valley to attempt to ward off the other Bill and Scorch, I, being able to only create a minor mind link with Chomper before we left. I wanted to know if 'Bill' came back and terrorized the valley again. Scorch and I left and one world at a time we learned new abilities, and became more powerful.

Scorch and I traveled for three years, collectively, learning abilities and being able and creating our own. In a world where the blade is the only way the people fought, I purchased twin short blades that when laid next to each other had a pearl emblem of a white dragon embedded into it, opposite of 'Bills' who's daggers had a Dark dragon embedded. There I also learned how to fight with the blades and to maintain them. Where ever we went Scorch and I made lots of allies and where we made close friends we left a mind-link.

More places we went, it seemed, the more the world's barriers were collapsing. Finally we returned to my home world expecting guard's I readied myself to send them home. As we walked something started to nag at me, I brushed it off as nervousness and continued. As we continued the nagging feeling became stronger. We reached the stair well to the Governors chamber when my body rebelled and forced me into a broom closet, Scorch to was forced to follow me into the closet. A vision appeared to me and I saw the Last Protector, i hadn't had a vision from him in the three years we trained, "Apprentice, I appologive for not having been able to warn you about the 'no contact rule'. If you are seeing this you have become very strong at creating portals. As a rule, you mustn't meet up with your past-self, because you could warn yourself of something in the future. Doing this would result in a time loop in which you're world would become trapped forever. In order to keep this from happening to us Protectors, we hardwired our bodies to force us away from our past selves." I woke from the vision as pain forced my body and peeked out the door, I watched as Scorch walked by, with me trailing slowly behind. "Bill, look at our past, we've come along way." He whispered. I smiled as our past walked by. When they reached the corner our bodies relaxed and let us move about. We continued up the hall into the governors hall.

"Ah you have returned." The dragon said welcomingly, "Don't think any of you're past work went unnoticed, I was told a long time ago of what you could do." We looked at him confused. "Don't worry, I was told by you to tell you to leave before you came to see me..." he shook his head trying to make sence of what he just said. "I know not what happens next for you refused to tell. But, are you ready to remove me from this chamber?" We nodded.

"We are ready to begin." With his permission we entered his mind and tapping into the massive reserve of energy he had built sitting in the capital we began to teleport him from the room. Molecule by molecule his massive form began to appear outside the capital. Scorch and I felt our own energy nearing depletion and start leeching off the dragon's energy. Looking up I saw both the ceiling and the blue sky as our bodies also began appearing outside the capital. Finally nothing of the dragon ourselves remained inside the building and we were outside the city. Replenishing our energy from the unlimited supply that this dragon seemed to have, Scorch and I set our minds to one thing, sending him home.

"Bill, Scorch, before you told me to bring my race to this city, as a result we overcrowded it, wars broke out amongst my people, and many died. I will not forgive this, and nor will I forget it." He said threateningly. We nodded and finished opening the portal to the size that would engulf the dragon. With a mighty roar drakes and dragons alike came from all over the city and began entering the portal. Lastly the Great king dragon left us. We shut and locked the world from being able to cross over to this world again and then relaxed.

Slowly the world return, as if the dragons never came, like magic people appeared in the streets, the city grew back to full size. It looked as if nothing had happened at all. I merged with Scorch and let him takeover, he headed for my home. As we moved the world behind us was slowly reverting to the way it was, while in front we could see the land as it was after the war. The change overtook us in a final blast. We hovered over a grassy land scape somewhere inbetween the city and my home.


	11. Chapter 11

Hello my name's Scorch, Bill and I have been traveling together now for almost a decade, I suppose I'll start where Bill left off. After returning the great dragons to their home, we went to Bill's home to an astonished and confused family.

Thinking it was a bad idea for me to be seen in public we merged. When we arrived to the house I demerged and settled down in a corner, after three years of living from town to town, I had become used to living either outside or in a big house with lots of room, being in this house made me feel somewhat claustrophobic. "Mom?" Bill called into the house.

"Bill?! Your home!!" she ran into the room. She looked straight at me and almost screamed; she looked to Bill then to me, then back. "It wasn't a dream?" Bill shook his head.

"No mom, and I'll be back, there's more worlds for Scorch and I to lock up." He promised. To Tom and me he broadcasted. {Tom, this is Bill, I'll be keeping in contact.} I heard a faint, confused, response. "Tell Katie, and Ashley, I miss them, and I'll see them soon." His mom started crying, "I'll be back soon." not willing to see anymore I walked to the nearest door way, I wanted to go home and see my world locked away. {c'mon, before she grounds you.} Bill rolled his eyes.

{Alright, alright.} "bye." i entered the portal, and waited on the other side, Bill followed shortly.

I took a deep breath, the air was pure, no taste of smoke or pollution in the air. The sun warmed my scales, I felt alive here, invincible, I had the home field advantage. I had brought us in through some ruins on the outside of my home town. I looked to the north and saw the city, just how we left it. However, something was wrong. The air around the city was gloomy and depressing. We moved toward the city heading toward the gate, we had no reason, other than a strange feeling, that we needed to be careful here. When we reached the gate there was a line, they were checking people heading in and out, searching them. Bill looked at me, "How we going to get through that?" I looked at him stupidly,

"The same way we always do." suddenly one of the guards shouted,

"He's merged with something. Demerge now!" a dragon stood denying every word, but stopped suddenly. "Demerge, now or get out of here!" the guard repeated one last time. Reluctantly the dragon gave up and demerged, a drake demerged from the dragon. "No adolescents allowed in unless they've completed the training." he blew fire into the face of the kid and the father until they turned and ran.

"Apparently that approach won't work this time. How about over the wall?" he motioned to the wall.

"That could work."

"Could." he agreed. "Let's go around so the guards won't see us." once we rounded the corner we merged. I set to work climbing the wall.

{You know I don't see why you couldn't just raise us to the top?} I asked.

{yea, and let the noise bring every guard on the wall down on top of us. speaking of guards they circle around every five minutes, by the time we reach the top we'll have to jump off to avoid detection.}

{Yea or we'll just wait for the guard to pass.} I said slipping a little. {Alright, concentrating now.} He laughed causing me to slip again... he stopped laughing. With an I-told-you-so snort I continued up the wall. Once we reached the top I waited, shortly after a door slammed a snake slithered slowly from one tower of the wall to another and slammed the tower door. I jumped over the wall and sunk my claws in letting go slowly letting myself slid down; when we reached the street level I was disgusted by how dirty the streets were. The buildings were run down and decomposing. As we moved into the center of the city the buildings were better up kept, we saw a pub and went in. The citizens looked healthy enough but then these seemed to be the solders. Ignoring the crowd we headed for the bar. "Who's the tender?" someone called a one eyed dragon approached the customer.

"Who wants to know?"

"This drink tastes like shit." The serpentoid spat the drink in the drakes face. "Were not paying."

"Then let me take that." the Dragon wiped his face, taking the drink from the serpents hand he poured it over the snakes head. "leave and don't return."

"Careful drake or you'll lose your last eye."

"If I take as many down as I did loosing this eye it will be worth it." The dragon snapped back. I recognized that snarl, relieved beyond measure I approached the dragon from his blind side and whispered in his ear.

"Who blinded you brother?" the Dragon turned to me. Shock ran through his eye.

"Scorch," he whispered in a low voice, "Where have you been? It's been three years since we last heard of you, and that was you were a traitor." he said keeping his voice low. "Let's not talk here, come with me." He walked toward the wall and veered off into a room, {Bill, this way.} he caught up in time for to see me enter the room, he followed me in and was quickly grabbed by two large guards. "Is he with you?" my brother asked, I nodded. "Let him go." the guards obeyed and dropped Bill, he brushed off his robe and continued following. We entered a dark room lit by a single candle; the room reeked with the smell of vomit, and other disgusting scents.

"Why are we in here brother?" He sat down outside the candle light,

"Are you the rider?" he asked Bill.

"No?" Bill replied confused. "I'm the protector."

"Scorch, do you have anything to say?" he looked me straight in the eye. Trying to see the faintest movement in my eyes. I rolled my eyes and grabbed him on the shoulders,

"Van, I'm not under his control."

"Then why did you leave? When the Fire lion returned for new students without you, mom fell apart, she thought you dead, or worse." He stopped then turned away. "If you're not under his control why did you leave her without a word?" I stepped back; I hadn't intentionally left without a word, given the chance I would have. But, how could I tell him? How could I explain why I left? Tears welled up.

"Where is she?" I asked solemnly.

"She's in the hospital, along with most of the females. If they're not working there, they're in the fields working till they drop. She lasted several months but feel ill to wyvern's disease. She won't make it much longer; she's getting weaker and weaker by the day." I looked to Bill, he had no objection to seeing my mother, she had done a lot of work getting him settled when he first arrived to the fort. "There's only one problem." We exited the bar and headed into town, we entered a building across from the hospital. "They have guards everywhere, ever since the new head of council was selected the Slither gang has became the protectors of the city. A load of good they've done."

"Thank you, Van." Bill spoke up. "Which room is it?" Van pointed to the room.

"How are you going to get in? The doors are always locked and censored, you can't get in." We rolled our eyes.

"Just watch." Bill grabbed my shoulder; Van gave us a piece of his memory of the medical room. We slowly began to phase into the room, Bill waved goodbye to Van. Our vision started to double as we saw both the outside of the building and the room. Soon we were completely transported into the room. I took a quick look around, "Mom!" I yelled.

"Scorch." she squeaked weakly. "Is that you Hun?"

"Yes mom, it's us, Bill and I." tears started to stream down my face.

"Scorch, my baby you've grown so much. How can this be? They said you were assassinated by another nation." I shook my head.

"No mom, the assassin failed, but he wasn't from a different nation..."

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at me squarely, "Has Bill told you yet, or is it not time?"

"Now's as good as any." Bill spoke up behind me. "Sensei cast a spell, with my permission, that made it so I couldn't tell him without your or the councils permission." I looked between Bill and Ma,

"Tell me what?" Bill looked to my mom who nodded permission. "Tell me what."

"Scorch, you're the heir to the fire nation." I couldn't believe it. I was the heir? How is that possible? But then, everything that happened in the past, the assassins, the wolves who tried to smuggle me into the darkness, and the annoying scents that my body gave off that made everyone giddy and perky when they were around me. Why hadn't I seen it before, I felt so stupid, how could I not have known. I suppose the possibility was so far off I never considered it.

"How am I linked to the kings and queens of old?" I asked turning to my mom. She took a few deep breaths before speaking.

"You know the legend of the war fifty years ago; when that egg hatched your father was born. I was with another dragon at the time, but he was killed stopping a document, he is Van's true father. Van knows that, but this part he doesn't know, your father and I met, it was love at first sight, before I knew it, I was pregnant with you, but before I could tell your father the council found out his identity when he attempted to take his rightful place." She paused to take a few more deep breaths. "The council assassinated him, I knew if they found out I was with his child I would be forced to abort you. Out of desperation if nothing else I married the father you knew to hid your real father. He soon led a rebellion and was hanged leaving me alone with you two to raise." She did her best to sit up. "Loan me your energy, i know you have the ability." she panted, I obeyed. She mumbled under her breath and under her claws appeared a pair of cufflinks embedded with red diamonds. They were more beautiful than anything I had seen in my travels, they carried a sense of power in them, and "These are the king's cufflinks, the family who raised your father gives them to you the rightful heir." she spoke weakly. I felt helpless, the wyverns disease had taken too much out of her body to heal her, if we tried we may end up putting her into coma, God knows what the serpent gang would do with her then.

A voice came over the intercom, "Unknown heat signatures in room 324 repeat unknown heat signatures in room 324; requesting security."

"Looks like we need to go ma. Get stronger for me ok?" Bill looked out the door to see to nurses investigating after seeing his cloaked head pop out of the door they screamed for the guards. "That's our cue to get out of here, please get stronger." As I said that her heart beat a little slower, I didn't know if she would make it until we left the building. "Just hold on, I'll return for you." I said through the tears. She nodded, the only thing that would keep her alive is her will, and I hoped that would hold her. Just as I turned three guards blocked the door.

"There's the intruders. Get 'em!"

"Scorch, we need an exit." Bill drew his daggers readying to fight. I looked swiftly from left to right, the window we teleported through was now blocked by a steel wall. Not wanting to blow up anything for the risk of shrapnel hitting my mom we squared off against the guards. The guards snake like necks coiled into a striking stance. Time seemed to slow as instinct kicked in, as fast as they struck I responded faster, he struck straight for my face, I stuck my claws straight into the serpents face, slicing its head to ribbons. Looking quickly, I saw Bill had dispatched his foe already we turned against the third guard who turned and ran. We followed him out into the hall, we looked up and down the hall for an exit, and an open window would have to do. We darted for it, as we ran fire doors started closeting, blocking our path we squeezed through the last fire door but not before a wall slammed shut in front of our face. Another hallway led from a spiraling stairwell to the bottom floor. Once we reached the bottom Bill crouched by the doorway leading into the foyer. Four guards stood at the door; by the looks of the sash's they wore they were elite guards. "Should 'a figured they wouldn't let us out so easy." Bill snorted. he eyed them again focusing. "C'mon we can take 'em." he said leaping out of cover toward the closest guard. With a sigh I charged after him, I watched Bill pull a kunai knife out of his sleeve, he sliced at the snake in front. As the knife moved the snake moved with it fazing behind Bill

"Fool." I heard the snake say lifting his sword like to strike he brought it down slicing Bill in half. The two halves of Bill hovered there for a moment. Before disappearing into a pile of smoke, a flash appeared in the smoke as Bill came down on the serpent and guillotined him with his daggers.

I heard a yell beside me, "Pay attention, we're your opponents." They stuck out, biting my legs and holding on while the third, whose arms were that of a saw blade, walked up getting ready to slice me in half. A kunai appeared in his throat; I took the chance and bit down on one of the snakes holding my leg crushing it. Bill threw a kunai at the other's neck forcing him to let go and move.

"Run Scorch." I looked at the kunai; a paper bomb was stuck to it. I looked at Bill, "Run you idiot." He was already out the door, I ran. I was half way to the door when I heard the paper bomb ignite, BOOM. I was thrust out the door by the shock wave.

"Why a bomb? In a hospital, why a bomb?" I yelled gathering myself

"All the fire doors are shut, so its structure won't be harmed... too much." As he spoke the overhang fell in front of the door way blocking a group of guards. "Let's discuss this elsewhere." I hastily agreed. We merged so we could change our appearance, and headed down an alley way, once we were sure we weren't followed I continued down the alley. Suddenly I felt weight less as I did when I was flying; my feet came out from under me knocking my head against the ground. "Oh you've got to be kidding!!" I yelled to no one in particular, as I hung upside down. One two of my feet were in a snare one went one way across the alley one went the other, giving anyone a clear view of my undercarriage that wanted one. Bill laughed {How is this funny?} I asked him

{We get passed all the traps in the hospital to be caught by some snare outside.} I saw some humor in what he was saying. But one question that rung in my head was: whose trap is this? If it were the serpents I'd be a filet already. I was about to burn us down when three Pups ran into the alley from one of the close buildings. Each had a different look its face. One was disappointed, one was surprised, and the other scared out of its wits.

"What are you doing in our trap?" I looked up irritated, at the pups

"I'm letting my stuff hang out, WHAT DO YOU THINK?" I yelled harsher then I intended. "Sorry rough day," about then the bite in my leg had opened and bled onto the rope.

"You're bleeding? Roy cut the rope." the surprised pup went behind a pile of trash, I heard a snap. I hit the ground hard Bill started to demerge.

"Did you guys make this trap?" Bill said looking at the rope. "You did a good job." All three pups looked frightened, then went to curious look, and then started to back up. I took a good look at the pups, they all reminded me of someone but I couldn't put my finger on it. I looked hard at the middle one; he seemed to be in charge of the two younger ones. Then I recognized him or at least what half wasn't from his mother.

"Youngster what is your name?" The wolf looked questioningly at me.

"Why?" I told him that I wanted to know the name of the pup that caught me so I could stay out of his alley next time. Satisfied with my answer he answered my own question. "Timber, Timber Jr." The pup piped.

"I knew it, I knew I saw his blood in you." the pup looked at his coat? As if asking you see my blood. "I'm a close friend, well, apprentice of your father. You wouldn't be able to take me to him would you?"

The pups lowered their tails sadly. "He left not but a few days after the Gang left."

"He said there was trouble in the pack he had to attend to, and he hasn't returned yet." I looked down frustrated.

Then what about your mother?" They shook their heads, "Then who are you staying with, you're too young to be out here alone."

They crinkled their noses. "Our uncle, he's a drunken old wolf." The left one popped up.

"He's mean." The one on the right named Roy. "When he's not asleep he's drunk and if he's not drunk he's getting drunk."

"But that doesn't mean he doesn't take care of us, there's always food if we need it." Timber began but was interrupted by his stomach growling. "Sorry." {Bill, I can't let Timber's pups live like this.}

"We'll be right back, stay here." I motioned to Bill we walked casually into the market and picked up some meats, carrying them back we brought them to the alley before we reached the corner I heard shouting, I peeked around the corner I saw a wolf standing menacingly over the pups.

"I," *hick* "thought I told you boys to stay near the house, not come lollygagging in some dark alley." The wolf said, he obviously wasn't sober. "I warned you that" *hick* "bad things would hap" *hick* "pen if you disobeyed me again." Faster than I've ever seen a wolf move the drunkard latched his jaws around Roy's back leg, lifting him up into the air he crunched hard, a horrible shattering POP echoed as the bone was crushed, he threw Roy against the wall. Before I could react he turned swiftly to the next one, and snapped down on the pup's neck. He threw the crumpled body away; Bill went after the pup while I went to take out the Drunk Uncle. "Now Timber you two also have to pay for this." as he leapt toward Timber I bit down on the adults scruff and threw him against the wall I but down on his stomach and held him upside down in the air.

"Don't kill him!" Timber cried. I looked down in disbelief as the pup actually rammed into my back foot. I put him down; he had passed out any way.

"He killed your brother." I pointed to the limp remains Bill was trying to revive. "Doesn't he deserve whatever he gets?" Timber looked tearfully to his fallen brother then to Roy.

"Yes, he deserves it all, but if you do it like this what will that make you but a murderer. No better than he is, let the law decide as it should." I stood there in disbelief, the mutt started to try and wiggle his way free of my grip. I knocked him on his side.

"You will never threaten them again or so help me I'll discard your remains into an inferno never to be laid to rest." I whispered to the now Scared Sober wolf.

"Ye... yes sir never again." questioningly I let him go, he took off toward what I would guess was his home. Bill looked over Roy, he was shaken up pretty well but other than his leg he was fine; Bill was currently patching his leg and setting it so it would grow correctly.

"There, now don't go running on it for an hour it should be fine." Bill tapped his leg just to show him it was better. Roy flexed his leg and found it working perfectly. With a thousand bitter-sweet thank you they picked up their brother and hauled him out toward the cemetery, after promising they'd tell their father I stopped by, if they see him that is. To make sure the uncle didn't give any trouble. We followed the pups out into the cemetery being sure not to be spotted by them as they laid there brother down to rest. Quickly they darted out of the grave yard, I guessed not wanting to be there. I guessed wrong, the ground started shaking and out from the newly dug grave was a wyrm, holding the pup in his jaws. It stared at us, Bill and I stood challengingly, we had taken worse things than a wyrm, him we could handle. With a snort the worm fell back into its hole. How could the council let the city get like this, had they no care for what happened? I thought remembering the wyrm we had accidentally awaken from the volcano while training with Sensei. We would have more to do then free lock down my world, we needed to make it right again, that itself would be nearly impossible.

We left the city through the main gate, not wanting to stick around incase someone recognized us. The guard called to us after we left "Are you sure you want to leave? We're closing the gate at nightfall." We looked back at him.

"We can handle ourselves," Bill said friendly.

"Alright but I don't want to hear it if the ants get ya."

"Ants? Here?" the guard stared at me strangely

"Where have you been the ants have laid siege to our lands for a year and a half now. We moved the outer villagers in just yesterday, the poor souls lost everything." he shook his head. As he turned a wolf with a strange bandanna on its leg, darted past, the guard smiled then laughed. "Poor ladies running scared." the guard then went back to work telling people they'd be shutting the gate.

"Well at least there's one nice person in the city." Bill humored.

"Let's set up camp nearby just in case he wasn't kidding about the ants." Bill agreed and led out about 50 feet from the wall. Before throwing out a blanket and settling down on it.

"Close enough?" He asked sarcastically. I scooted closer a few feet.

"Perfect." I smiled. We watched as the sun slowly lowered into the west, from the sun it seemed like drums were being played, a slow marching beat. I squint to try and see what was making the noise. As the sun set the shapes became clearer, they were coming closer. As they came close I could finally see what they were… Ants


End file.
